Supernatural Love
by HannahWroteThis
Summary: When Charlotte Jones and her family move into a rickety old house in Goatswood, Connecticut, things start to get pretty spooky.
1. Smoke and Visions

**A/N: **Hey guys! This is elementalxmen2015 here with a new story! I recently watched the movie _A Haunting in Conncecticut _and instantly fell in love with Jonah Aickman :D Well, anyway, I wanted to tell you a couple of things:  
1) This _is _another one of those Jonah/OC fics, so please don't flame me!  
2) My friend and I are tag-teaming and taking turns writing chapters, so if the chappies sound off, that's why.  
3) _I DO NOT OWN _A Haunting in Connecticut_! _Just wanted to get that out there.

_DO THE HOKIE POKIE IF YOU LOVE JONAH! *_gets up and turns on Hokie Pokie music!*

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Supernatural Love

1

Smoke and Visions

"Fire and Danger, two different things that become one in a flash,

They can only be extinguished with tears of grief we shed,

Like a ghost of the night, it is quiet and mournful,

Swift and waiting to be released

Like a cobra in its nest,

It is never to be underestimated or unwilling"

_Fire and Danger,_ Victoria Burgess

Smoke.

Smoke filled my nostrils and lungs, causing me to wake up. I bolted straight up in my bed, realizing that there was a blazing fire outside my bedroom door. Heart racing, I ran to my dresser and grabbed as many garments as I could and stuffed them into the crack of the doorway, blocking out as much smoke as possible. I ran to the window and jerked it open and stuck my head out of it. I saw the fire trucks and police cars below my second-story window. I grabbed a white shirt and waved it at them, letting them know that I was OK and that they needed to come save me.

As I descended from my window, I saw my mom and little brother come running after me, my baby sister cradled in Mom's arms. As soon as I touched ground, she attacked me and smothered me in her arms.

"Oh, God, Charlotte! I thought you were going to die! Oh, thank God you're OK!" Mom cried out, smothering me with kisses. Andrew, my brother, embraced my slender legs and started crying.

"Char-Char, I thought you was gonna die!" he stuttered between sobs; his little seven-year-old face was twisted and snarled from his crying.

"Oh, Andrew, don't think that! I'm just fine, don't you see!" I exclaimed, embracing his shivering body. I looked back at the burning house with teary eyes. Everything was now gone. All our possessions, photos, lives, _gone_.

"Mom, what are we gonna tell Dad?" I asked. She gave me a sad look and passed Piper, my baby sister, to me.

"Honestly, I really don't know. This is just so terrible…" she said, sobbing into her hands. I had just noticed that Piper was crying the whole time. _I wanna cry, too. Just cry my eyes out _I thought to myself as I hushed her to sleep. I turned and watched the firemen put out the stupid flames with tears streaming from my eyes. _What the freak caused that fire to happen anyway?_

Turns out, Mom had forgotten to blow out a couple of candles, and one was too close to the wall… I think you can tell what had happened next.

Well, Dad got a call the next day, and he _was not _happy. I'm just glad he wasn't home at the time. Dad is a soldier in the army, fighting over in Iraq right now. God, I miss him…

Well, that happened a month ago. Now we're renting a rickety old house in Goatswood, Connecticut, a block away from the remains of my beloved home. Our insurance agency gave us enough money to buy mattresses, clothes, and other necessities. One of my aunts gave us the crib she used for her daughter five years ago, and our cousins gave us hand-me-down clothes. I'm not complaining, though, because they're pretty cute.

Although, the house could use a little work. It's old, it creaks, it moans, the paint is peeling off the walls, it smells like death, and there's this mysterious door in the basement. All of us have tried to open it, but it won't budge. It's really creepy because my art studio is in there, and I swear to Big Bird that there are people, _ghosts,_ living in there. Watching me. Constantly eyeing my every move. And the worst thing is, I get visions when I'm down there. They seem to take place in the 1920s, and there's always one person that's in every vision.

He lived with his father, who had turned this house into a morgue and funeral parlor. His father abused him constantly. He always yelled at the poor boy, always calling him names, always beating him down with fists and words. The boy's name was Jonah, and he looked about fifteen years old; a year older than I am. Jonah had a special gift, too. He was a medium, someone who can contact the dead. I've seen visions of him and other people forming a séance, with his father standing at the head of the table. God, it's so terrible… Jonah had horrible convulsions while contacting spirits and it would drain so much energy from him that he would collapse…

Oh, please don't make me go any further! It's so terrible for words that I've actually painted and drawn everything that I saw, and without realizing it. I have pictures of Jonah's convulsions, his father beating him, the séances, and everything else I've ever envisioned. Mom wonders why I have such morbid pictures in the basement, and it's so hard explaining what's happening to me. She thinks I'm crazy. I've heard her talking about me with Dad on the phone. She's told him about my pictures, and she thinks it's because of the fire. She's actually tried to send me to trauma therapy at the hospital she works at.

"Mom, I don't need therapy!" I protested.

"Well then explain all those pictures in the basement!" she cried out, becoming agitated with my stubbornness. She was always tired from work, and my "problems" weren't making it better for her.

"Mom, I know this is hard to believe, but you need to listen to me. I _cannot_ help drawing these pictures, OK? I've been getting these visions when I'm down in the basement, and I can't help but to draw them. I know you think I'm crazy, but believe me, I'm completely sane," I tried explaining to her. She never listened. She always accused me of back-talking her when I gave her this speech. I eventually gave up on it. She had always thought I was a strange child, thanks to the clothes I wear (sort of a punk-ish type style) and how much makeup I used (eyeliner is my lifeline!), mixed in with my love for cheerleading, tumbling, and art.

"You know I can always pull a few strings at the hospital to get you into therapy," she said. I nearly exploded when she said this.

"MOTHER! I don't need therapy!" I yelled. After I had realized what I had said, I clamped my hand over my mouth. Then I felt a sudden sting spread across my face. My mother had slapped the fire out of my left cheek.

"Mom, I'm sorry…" I mumbled quietly, fighting back tears.

"Go to your room and stay there," she commanded, fighting tears as well. I obeyed, quietly shutting the door behind me as not to wake up my sleeping sister who lived across the hall. I lay on my bed and curled up in a ball with tears forming rivers down my face. Then I saw something flash from the corner of my eyes. I looked up and saw a very pale, almost see-through, teenaged boy roaming through my beat-up dresser and taking out completely different clothes than mine. The clothes he took out (and what he was wearing) looked like they were from the 1920s.

He stuffed the clothes into a dingy white pillow case and looked straight at me. He looked so familiar… I had seen those eyes before. His light blue-green eyes, his dark hair, his clothes, his pale skin, I had seen it all very recently. Right as I sat up to look at him better, he turned his head as his name was called.

"JONAH! JONAH AICKMAN, YOU BETTER NOT BE RUNNING AWAY FROM ME!" a deep, angry voice yelled from downstairs. It was Jonah from my visions! He ran through the closed door in panic. I followed him, carefully opening the squeaky door. I followed him down the stairs, running three steps behind him. Just as he had turned the knob to the back door in the kitchen, I saw his monster of a father grab him by his shirt collar and drag him down to the basement. Jonah struggled to become free from his father's grip, and succeeded in making his dad let go of his collar, but gained a hair yanking from his dad's angry fists.

They reached the door leading to the mystery room in the basement, walking through all my paintings in the process. Jonah's father let go of the poor boy's black hair and gave him a hard smack across his face. I could feel my clammy fingers gently stroke the red handprint on my own cheek.

"If I _ever _catch you running away from me again, believe me, there will be all Hades to pay! You got that?" his dad screamed. Jonah lowered his gaze to his scratched-up shoes and uttered a quiet "Yes sir". I saw a single tear drip off his chin as his father forcefully pushed him into the mysterious room.

"HEY! Leave him alone!" I screamed defensively as he slammed the door behind him. I ran to the half-glass door and pressed my face against the cold window to see if anything was going on in there, but it was pitch black as always. I could hear footsteps coming down the basement stairway. Crap.

"Charlotte Helena Jones! I thought I told you to stay in your room!" Mom growled. When she said my full name, I knew I was in trouble.

"Mom, I can explain!" I pleaded.

"Is it because you had another 'vision'? Because if it is, I don't wanna hear that crap!" she screamed, putting air quotes around the word "vision". I fell silent and hung my head low. I knew what was coming.

"Char, you are grounded for a whole month! No cell phone, no computer, no TV, and no Jenny's house Friday!"

"But, Mom!" I pleaded.

"But, nothing! Now go to your room! _Now,_" she commanded, stamping her foot and pointing up the stairs.

"Yes, ma'am," I muttered. I unwillingly walked up the stairs and back to my room. Angrily, I plopped down on my bed and curled up into the fetal position. _Life friggin' sucks_, I thought, feeling the tears begin to burn my eyes. _First, my old house burned down; next I'm getting freaky visions, and now this? What's next? Am I going to see visions everywhere?_ I thought. Boy, I had no idea.

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**A/N: **Please tell me if Charlotte (Char for short) sounds too Mary-Sue-ish. I don't want to have a Mary-Sue in meh story!


	2. Tumbling Into Disaster

**A/N:** Hey guys, wazzzaaaaaaaap? My friend Victoria wrote this chapter, since we are tag-teaming and whatnot, and both poems for chapters 1 & 2. I'll be writing the next chap, then Victoria, then so on and so forth. So if you see differences between chapters, that's why. If I didn't have Victoria write this chappie, I would have epicly _**FAILED.**_  
And now, on with the show!

_SPIN AROUND IN YOUR SPINNING CHAIR IF YOU LURVE JONAH! *_spins until she gets sick*

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Supernatural Love

2

Tumbling into Disaster

Doing twists and turns to send me flying,

It's just another way for me to stay grounded,

But the things that drive others nuts,

May be the only things to keep me sane,

Visions of the unreal that can't be explained,

Just may be real sights of the explainable

_Staying Grounded, _Victoria Burgess

Being in this stupid old house with nothing to do is probably just as much fun as sticking needles in my eyes, but the one thing I'm not grounded from is cheerleading. Plus, it's Friday which means football (which I know nothing about) and football means half-time, which means tumbling, (a.k.a. "flipping" to you who don't know cheer terms) and stunt building (when that girl goes in the air).

Although, practice I could live without because it seems no amount of ice or pain killers could ease my muscles. But I know it'll all be worth it since I'd be out of this house and free from Jonah, his father Ramsey, and the awful visions. As I thought about this I threw on some clothes for school and headed into the kitchen. In the kitchen, Mom was feeding Piper and Andrew was packing his snack for school. I grabbed an apple from the counter for breakfast and took a huge bite.

"EEEEEW!" I gagged. I spat up the bit of apple, which was pitch black and obvious it was rotten. I stared at the inside of the apple and it was very rotten on the inside, but it looked completely normal on the outside.

"Charlotte? What's wrong?" asked my mother.

"Mom, this apple is rotten to the core!" I managed to say, trying not to vomit. She took the apple and examined it

"Oh, my God! I just went grocery shopping yesterday! I must've grabbed a bad apple by mistake! Char, I'm so sorry," my mom explained, baffled by the sight of the apple. Andrew looked at the apple and said "That's nasty! It's all black and stuff! Look Char-Char! You _ate_ that! What if you _died_ like Snow White?"

"Andy, I'm fine, okay? See, I'm perfectly fine," I explained. He nodded and went out the door to go to the school bus.

"I'll go buy some more apples today," said my mom as she threw away the apple "Now go outside with your brother and do good at the football game for me 'kay?" she said. I grinned, grabbed my books and followed Andrew out the door. The school bus came as soon as I walked out the door. I found a seat and rode to school trying to put aside the thought of the apple.

As soon as the bus got in the parking lot I jumped of the bus and met with Jenny, my best friend and fellow cheerleader. We had science and Athletic P.E. together, so we didn't see a lot of each other. I told her about the apple, what my brother had said, and how I was grounded, so she called me "Snow White" the whole day whenever she saw me. I didn't tell her about Jonah and the visions because at this point it, seems no one is going to believe me.

The day passed on like any normal day, I took a test in science (I got an A) and I turned in my homework in math (A once again). It was 5th period, and _finally _time to cheer. I entered the cheer room with paint all over the floor and I saw the wall covered with one giant mirror .I changed quickly, stretched, and was ready to go.

"Snow White!" yelled Jessie, "can you show Mrs. Hampshire your round-off layout for tonight's half-time?" she asked.

"Sure." I replied.

"Get to it then," said Mrs. Hampshire. "5, 6, 7, 8!" she yelled. I shrugged, ran, and as soon as I finished my round-off I rebounded for the lay out and as I did, under me I saw a man. A pale blue man with no eyelids, and strange bloody writing carved all over his body. His eyes were pale white like a blizzard.

I panicked and felt a slam and a stinging up my arm. I got off the mat and grabbed my arm, it was throbbing with pain. I looked up. The mirror on the wall was broken, my arm was bleeding, and my auburn colored hair was hanging in my face. The man wasn't there anymore.

There were glass shards on the floor and all the cheerleaders were helping me up.

"Out of the way!" said Mrs. Hampshire. She grabbed my good arm and pushed her way through the other cheerleaders. She took me to the nurse and she bandaged my arm.

"She'll be fine, it's just some cuts and bruises, nothing too serious," the nurse explained. "Her arm will be sore though, and I think she should sit out at tonight's half-time."

Mrs. Hampshire nodded solemnly and we walked out thanking the nurse for her help.

I walked in the cheer room at 3:00 and Jenny ran over to me.

"You really know how to bust a mirror," she said jokingly. We left practice and took the bus home. We discussed the incident in the cheer room and I still didn't tell her about the man.

At the game, we were losing to the Franksville Pumas; thirty-three to twelve. It was almost half- time and my throat was already sore from yelling cheers. We started a crowd cheer, saying "KNIGHTS! YELL IT! KNIGHTS! GREEN AND BLACK! YELL IT! GREEN AND BLACK! COME ON KNIGHTS! LET'S ROCK THAT SCORE!"

I showed spirit and turned to face the field. And on the 50 yard line was a burnt boy, totally charred. He was about my age, and he was staring right at me with his blue-green eyes.

His clothes looked familiar, but I couldn't really tell since they were black, burnt, and almost gone. My heart raced, I started sweating, and I saw our quarterback carrying the ball. He was headed at lightning speed, straight for the boy.

"STOP! WATCH OUT!" I yelled at the quarterback, who was a yard away from the burned kid. He ran right through the burned boy. The boy disappeared in a cloud of mist. I stared in disbelief at the field. _How? _I thought. It doesn't make sense! He was right there. Wait, was I having a vision just then? Or was it just like the man in the cheer room?

"TOUCHDOOOOOOOWN KNIGHTS!" yelled the announcer. Most people were cheering, but everyone else had their eyes locked on me, since I was gaping at the field, and because of what I yelled. I felt totally blank; nothing made sense. Why was that boy there on the field and why was he looking at me? The cheerleaders were all giving me nasty looks except for Jenny. _Who was that? _I thought.

The cheerleaders did the half-time routine while I watched from the sidelines. They ran off the field as I heard one of them whisper "I think she hit her head too hard on that mirror." _Snob, _I thought. As the game carried on, everyone but Jenny shunned me and gave snobby looks.

After we lost the game forty to eighteen, everyone walked past me and made faces, and some dramatically yelled "STOP!" and "WATCH OUT!", to which they were obviously teasing me. I fought the strong urge to flip them all off. And a couple times I gave little smirks to the cheerleaders who made fun of me. I thought that cheerleading would take my mind off things, but it just made things worse. As Jenny and I walked out of the gate, I was constantly seeing the blue spirits with milky white eyes; standing amongst the crowd, acting as if they were alive again. I felt like I was stuck in the movie _The Sixth Sense._

These apparitions can (and will) follow me everywhere. But why would they do that? I mind my own business and I don't snoop. And why can these questions not be answered? I hate not being able to answer questions. _Jonah, why am I so important to you? _I screamed in my head, hoping the ghost boy could hear me.

Once I got to my house, I jumped on my bed and mumbled "Why me? I really must be going crazy!" I rolled over, careful not to put pressure on my injured arm, and fell asleep, dreading going to school on Monday.


	3. Treasure Hunt

**A/N:** Wazzap homies? The lovely Victoria Burgess wrote this poem as well, and she shall be writing the next chapter... HEHE :D Yeah, we're pretty much _AWESOME._ This chapter is where the story starts gettin kinda freaky! **YAY**! I know this part happened towards the end of the movie... forget the movie! haha :) Now, on with the show!

_SEND ME A REVIEW SAYING YOU LOVE JONAH! _c'mon you know you want toooooo!

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3

Treasure Hunt

Uncovering mystery,

Digging up the past,

Leads us closer to the near future

Things must be uncovered,

And revealed to the world,

To set things right again,

The past can only lead us,

To the future ahead,

And in the future things will be hidden,

So they can be discovered once more.

_Discovery, _Victoria Burgess

I woke up the next morning to a gloomy sky. My mood obviously affected the weather that morning.

"What a _glorious _morning," I muttered sarcastically, wiping the sleep (and crust) away from my eyes. I got out of bed and walked over to my dresser. As I took out a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt, I noticed that all my makeup was gone. So were my hairbrush, my deodorant, all my pens and pencils, and even my homework!

"Andrew!" I yelled accusingly. I stormed downstairs and found him eating breakfast at the dinner table.

"Andrew, why did you move my stuff?" I demanded, stamping my foot and placing my hands on my hips.

"I dunno what you're talking about! I didn't even go in your room!" he exclaimed, talking with his mouth full of Pop-Tarts. I heard Mom coming into the kitchen.

"What are you two fussing about?" she asked, fastening her watch around her wrist. She was wearing her work clothes.

"Mom, Andrew went into my room and hid all my stuff!" I complained.

"Did not!" Andy yelled, spitting chocolate mush everywhere.

"Okay, _okay!_" Mom yelled over our bickering. "Andy, are you telling the truth?" she asked him. I looked at him, realizing the innocence in his eyes.

"No, Momma," he said truthfully.

"He's not lying," I said quietly. I can always tell when the kid was lying. His pupils would get wider than normal. I should know; mine do the same thing. This time, though, his pupils were normal size.

"Oh, Mom, I completely forgot! I never unpacked my bag for Jenny's house! Oh, stupid me!" I lied, turning around so my mom couldn't see my widening pupils. I knew for an absolute fact that I had unpacked my bag.

I apologized for my misbehavior and ran back to my room. On my way there, I found my hairbrush in on the first steps that lead to the attic. I bent over to pick up the hairbrush, and saw my deo a few steps up. As I walked up the stairs, I kept finding all the things that had went missing. I finally reached the top step, where my beloved eyeliner was, and picked it up. I saw a piece of paper with my handwriting on it. It was my history homework!

I opened the attic door to find all the paper in my binder had been strode out, leading a path to my history book and binder. _That's really weird, _I thought to myself, picking up all the paper and stuffing it in what little space I had left in my arms. I walked over to where my history book was. Right as I stepped beside it, the floor caved in. I quickly stepped back from the hole in the floor. _Oh, crap,_ went through my head about a thousand times. I gently stepped around the hole, making sure there were no more weak spots in the floorboards. When everything seemed safe, I lay down on my stomach and reached into the insect-infested hole. I felt around, and my fingers brushed the accursed textbook. I grabbed it and pulled it out, looking down to make sure I wouldn't drop it. While looking down, I noticed a small, weathered box. I pulled it out and fingered the beaten-up wood. It was unlocked, so out of curiosity, I opened it.

There were tons of small sepia-colored Polaroid photos in it. I flipped through them. There were pictures of small children sitting in their parents' laps, their eyes shut tight. There were also pictures of babies lying in cribs, surrounded by older people. The babies' eyes were always shut, as if they were sleeping. There was also one photo with two brothers (possibly twins) sitting on a sofa, the one on my right laying on the other's shoulder, his eyes shut. Then it hit me. They were all _dead_! I quickly placed the disturbing photos on the floor and looked back in the box. There was a smaller box, sitting next to a brass skeleton key.

I opened the smaller box. There were white strips of some material in there. There were tons of them, too. I picked one up and rubbed my thumb and forefinger across it. It felt like dead skin! Gross!

I threw the strip back into the box and closed it. I placed it back in the bigger box, along with the freaky photos, and took out the key. Underneath it, I found another photo and a small piece of paper. I took the three items out and examined them.

The key was small and lightweight, just barely fitting into the palm of my hand. _Wonder what this goes to? _I thought. I shrugged and placed it back in the box. I looked at the photograph next. It was a picture of a teenaged boy, holding hands with an older lady and man. They were holding two other people's hands, but they were cut out of the picture. The boy was cringing in pain, his eyes were shut tight, and he was holding the other's hands as if they were his lifeline. I looked closer at the old picture. Oh, God, it was Jonah! There was another picture glued to the back. It was Jonah, again, but this one was extremely freaky. His face was twisted from pain, his mouth was wide open, and there was this copper-colored bajiggity mess floating out of his mouth. I threw the horrid picture across the room in terror. _HOLY SHISH-KABAB! _I screamed in my head.

As my heart rate slowed down, I picked up the piece of paper. It had neat handwriting on it. It read: _One fine day, in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight. Back to back, they faced each other; drew their swords and shot one another. One was blind, the other couldn't see, so they chose a dummy for a referee. A blind man went so see fair play, and a dumb man went to shout "hooray!" A paralyzed donkey passing by kicked the blind man in the eye. Knocked him through a nine inch wall, into a dry ditch and drowned them all. A deaf policeman heard the noise and came to arrest the two dead boys. If you don't believe my lie is true, ask the blind man. He saw it, too!_

"What the freak is _that_ supposed to mean?" I yelled aloud. I covered my mouth, hoping no one had heard me. I placed the delicate sheet of paper back in the box and closed the lid. I put all my paper in its proper place in my binder, gathered all my things, and went back downstairs. Mom had left for work a few minutes ago, and Andrew was sitting on the couch watching television. I looked out the window and noticed it was raining. Beautiful, just beautiful.

I put the box on my dresser and took out the small brass key. I placed it in my pocket and walked downstairs to the basement. I took the key out of my pocket and put it into the tiny keyhole in the half-glass door. Sliding it in carefully, I turned the key, hearing the tumblers unlocking the mysterious door. _Click_. I turned the knob and slowly proceeded into the dark room. In the center of the low ceiling, I saw a naked light bulb with a long chain dangling above my head. I pulled it. The dim light flickered on, revealing metal tables you would find in a morgue, dozens and dozens of tools I had never seen before, a false skeleton (like what you see in science classes), posters and pictures of anatomy all over the walls, books, and a poster with strange writing on it. I walked closer to the strange poster, trying to make out the crazy handwriting. Suddenly, I heard someone talking behind me.

"Now Jonah, I've told you a thousand times before, necromancy is a delicate trade. One wrong move and the soul could be lost forever," a gruff voice explained. It was Ramsey. I turned around. He was leaning over a dead body, writing the exact same language as the poster onto the deceased's skin with a scalpel. Jonah was watching him with great horror and disgust on his young face. He looked my way, as if he was looking straight through me, and walked over to the poster that I was recently looking at.

"Father, what does all this mean?" he asked. His voice was deep, taking me by surprise at just how deep it was. It was almost kind of hot. _Almost._

"It's the ancient language of the first necromancers. I can't tell you what it means until you become a necromancer as well," Ramsey said proudly. Jonah rolled his eyes at his father's back. He walked back to the same spot when the vision began and watched his father. I stood beside Jonah and watched Ramsey intently. _I wonder if he can see me, _I asked myself. I waved my hand in front of Jonah's face. Nothing.

I turned back to watch Ramsey again. He was placing clamps on the deceased's eyelids. He pulled them towards him and started to cut them off with the scalpel. I gagged at this sight. I turned to Jonah, who was also flinching, although I could tell he had seen it before. I could tell he had seen a lot of things he didn't need to see. His beautiful eyes said it all.

Ramsey took the freshly cut eyelids and placed them in a small box, along with several other pairs of dry lids. He closed the box and placed it in a small, beat-up dresser. _Oh, God, that's my dresser! And that's the same box that was in the attic!_

I had found my dresser down here, outside of the mystery door when we first moved here. I am _so_ going to demand my mother to get me a new dresser once this vision is over.

As Ramsey started wrapping the body up in linen cloth, Jonah said he needed to use the restroom. _I'm there with ya! _I thought to myself, exiting the morgue behind him. I stepped into the basement and looked behind me. Ramsey was no longer there, just the naked light bulb and tools from before.

"I gotta draw a picture for this," I whispered to myself. I walked over to a blank sheet of paper and started to sketch everything I had just previously seen. If only I knew these visions were going to get worse. If only…


	4. On My Own for Now

**A/N:** Victoria wrote this wonderful chapter and poem :D I LURVE YOU V!

_DOUGIE IF YOU LURVE JONAH! *_Teach me how to dougie, teach me how to dougie! ERRBODY DOUGIE (for JONAH)!*

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**Chapter 4**

**On My Own For Now**

**Life is a gift,  
****This gift lasts for what seems forever,  
****But for some,  
****The gift lasted only a few short seconds,  
****But don't be discouraged,  
****Don't shed a tear,  
****Those people are the lucky ones  
**_The Gift of Life, _Victoria Burgess

I stepped back and stared at the piece of art I had painted. It looked exactly like the vision I had... except it wasn't as creepy as being there in person. I took a long sigh.

"This still doesn't make sense." I thought aloud. "If all this necromancy is the problem, then how does Jonah expect me to help? I mean, that happened _forever _ago. I can't change that." I felt a chill run up my spine and it suddenly became very cold. Somebody (or something) was down here.

"Mom…?" I said and no one answered. "Andrew?" I said louder... no reply. "..._Jonah_?" I whispered. I felt another tingle up my spine. I heard a thunk below my feet. I looked down slowly and at my feet was the box of eyelids, which in my opinion looked like corn flakes, with the picture of Jonah and the floating vomit (I imagined is what it was) on top of it.

"Okay, Jonah you've got my attention, now why is this so important?" I said loudly. No reply. _I guess this part I have to figure out on my own._

Well, I have a laptop, there's a library down the road, Mom will be at work for another two hours, and Andrew and Piper are napping. Looks as if this is may be my only chance to figure out what's going on.

I walked to the library, which was a good mile away from my house, and got some blue prints of the house, books on the town's history, and a book on necromancy. When I got home, I sat down on the couch and got on the town's website and looked at old newspapers with Jonah and his father, and the history of ghosts in the house. I eventually just looked up Jonah and his father in general on Google. After an hour of reading and typing, a headache started kicking in. Knowledge filled my brain. I finally put all the pieces together.

I heard the front door unlock. I grabbed the books about necromancy and hid them in my backpack. "I'm hooome!" yelled my mother in a cheery voice. I quickly logged off the computer.

"Hello my beautiful daughter to whom of which I love very, very, very much!" my mom gushed. Now _THIS _was freaky. Mom usually came home exhausted and said an occasional "hey" and walked to her bedroom.

"Umm... you're in a good mood. I'm guessing work wasn't jank like always?" I joked.

"No it was jank, but your dad called," she said smiling.

"Really? How is he?" I said excitedly. This was a big deal because my dad almost _never_ called since he was in Iraq (which must have terrible cell phone service). "He's fine; he misses you, Andrew, and Piper very much. He just wanted to remind us he loves us and misses us and he wishes he was here," she said calmly. I smiled a smile so humongous the Cheshire cat would look at me and would say "Dang!"

"So, umm, what you got there?" Mom asked, pointing at the blueprints of the house._ Epic fail! _I thought. I quickly came up with an excuse.

"I was doing some research on the house. It's the original blueprints of the house," I replied. _I also did a whole bunch of web searching,_ I said in my head, not wanting to get in trouble. I wasn't exactly "lying," I just wasn't saying anything about the ghosts, which she had pointed out she didn't want to hear about. "I thought it would take my mind off of all the painting I do..." I lied. I could feel my pupils growing rapidly.

"That's great honey! You know what? This has been the best day ever so far," she said enthusiastically.

"Glad for you," I said trying to sound happy. "But, I have some homework to do, so can I use the laptop for thirty minutes? Please?" I asked my mom.

"Sure, but it better be for homework _only_," she said walking up the stairs. I nodded and got back to business. _Oh, I'm doing homework, alright! _I thought.

Turns out this house used to be a funeral parlor. Ramsey and Jonah Aickman lived in the house too. Jonah was a medium, probably the most famous medium around here, and they performed séances here. But not just _any_ séances, their séances were famous state-wide. Everyone knew about them, and they contacted the dead often. But no one knew their little secret. Ramsey was a necromancer, someone who binds the souls of the dead. That's why he wrote all that crazy language on the bodies in my vision.

I don't know _everything_ about this necromancy stuff yet, but I've learned enough for now.

Suddenly, my cell phone rang and the contact ID said **Dad3**. I answered quickly and sure enough, Dad was on the other end.

"Hey, Char," he said in an ecstatic tone.

"Dad!" I yelled; I so happy I could've burst. "I'm so happy to hear your voice!" I said.

"Same here! So, how are you liking the new house?" he asked.

_Oh just crawling with rats, bugs, and ghosts who cause me to have horrific visions. So how's Iraq?_ That's what I felt like saying. "Oh, it's nice. Real roomy, but it has a lot of kinks, but those can be worked out." is what came out of my mouth.

"That's great! I'm glad you like it. Iraq has a lot of kinks too; _believe _me," he chuckled. I couldn't help but to giggle like a child.

I always loved talking to my dad. It's like he understood me even when I said nothing. I always told him everything, even when I was little, so this was kind of awkward. I wanted to tell him my problems, but I just couldn't.

"Dad?" I said questioningly.

"Hmm?" he replied.

"If you had a problem and didn't know how to handle it, what would you do?" I asked.

"Where'd that come from?" he asked.

"Just curious," I lied, feeling my pupils growing rapidly again.

"Charlotte, sweetie, I guess I would go face it head on. No looking back, but you've gotta have the strength to do that. Not physical strength, but emotional strength. And whatever this is, you can do it because I believe in you and I'll always listen." he replied wisely. I was close to tears at that point.

"Ok, Dad." I said, strongly holding back the sobs.

"Well, I gotta go kiddo. Looks like you're on your own from now. I love you and I'm so blessed to have you for a daughter and that your okay." he said.

"Love you Daddy." I said, my voice breaking slightly. I didn't want him to hang up.

"Bye baby girl."

He hung up. I took in a deep breath and let it out so it created a long, peaceful sigh. _On my own for now, _those words kept playing over and over again in my head.

Then, I heard Piper crying upstairs. Before I could get off the couch, Andrew was climbing down the stairs.

"Piper's crying," he said tiredly.

"Yeah, I know. Go back to bed; I'll take care of her," I replied. He didn't reply back and just climbed back up the stairs.

I got to Piper's room and opened the door. There right by her crib was Ramsey. He was looking in, just staring at Piper in a haunted way.

"No, No, _NO_! _Get away from her_!" I yelled defensively. He looked at me through his circular spectacles as I picked up a baby bottle and threw it at him. He vanished as the baby bottle passed through him. I rushed over to Piper's crib and picked her up. She was screaming louder than a banshee.

"There, there. It's OK, Piper; the mean man is gone," I cooed._ And he won't come back if I have anything to say about it. _After about two minutes of shushing and rocking Piper, she went back to sleep. I went to my room and put on my pajamas.

Ramsey has really ticked me off. I felt like screaming, but stayed silent.

"If you ever, _EVER_, lay a hand on my family, I will send you to the fiery depths of hell where you belong! You hear me, Ramsey?" I yelled. Everyone in my house was asleep and didn't hear my yelling.

_This is NOT over. _I thought about what my dad said about strength and facing my problems head on. But, I couldn't help but think about him saying I was _"on my own for now_." I guess he really wasn't kidding.

I may not have to get information on my own though… I still didn't have all the pieces put together, so I guess I'd have to get some help. Yes, I have decided that I am going to see a reverend_. _I'm on my own for now though, and I'd better be getting used to it.


	5. All That Remained

**A/N:** Victoria wrote this amazing poem :D THIS is the chapter where Jonah comes in to play!

_DANCE IS YOU LURVE JONAH! *Now kick, now kick, now kick, now kick, now walk it by yourself, walk it by yourself!*_

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**5**

**All That Remained**

**Silence is bliss  
****At times it's all we have  
****Sometimes silence can be so loud,  
****You can't hear it  
****And to those who have departed,  
****But still remain,  
****Silence is everything,  
****It is golden  
****But the remaining  
****Can never let go of it  
**_Silence of the Remaining, _Victoria Burgess

**M**onday finally rolled around. As expected, I received several remarks, such as "Stop!" and "Watch out!" Most of them came from the cheerleaders. I just laughed along with them, acting like I didn't know what they were talking about. The three o' clock dismissal bell finally rang. I sat with Jenny on the bus. I got up the courage to tell her what had really happened at the game Friday.

"So what you're saying is that you _saw _a burned boy our age standing on the fifty yard line?" she asked, dumbfounded. I solemnly nodded my head. I knew she didn't believe me. No one would.

"Char, I think you hit your head way too hard on that mirror," she joked. I gave her a dirty look, letting her know I wasn't joking at all.

"Jennifer Dawn Newman, I am _not _joking about this. I saw a dead man in that freakin' mirror in the cheer room, and I saw the same man and some other people that looked like him out in the crowd and by the gates, too," I told her. She just looked down at the books in her lap. I knew she was trying to comprehend everything that was happening.

"I'm sorry if you can't understand what's going on here, but you need to believe me. I can't understand most of it myself," I whispered.

"I'm trying to understand. It's just that things like this usually happen in movies and books and stuff. Are you sure I'm the only one you've told?" she asked.

"Yes, and I want to keep it that way. I know no one else will believe me, and I'm not exactly sure if I believe myself right now. But, Jenny, please promise that whatever happens, you'll be there for me when I need you," I said, placing my hand on her shoulder.

"Of course I will! Isn't that what best friends are for, anyway?" she laughed. I felt a smile creep across my face. She was always able to turn a bad situation around for me. I thanked her for being the best friend I had ever had and got off the bus. I held Andy's hand as we crossed the street to the rickety old rental that I now called my home. I unlocked the door, walked upstairs to my room, threw my books on my bed, and walked back downstairs.

"Hey, Andy, you wanna play cards?" I asked him. He nodded his head eagerly and ran to the dining room to get the playing cards out of the bottom of the hutch. He brought them back into the living room and took them out of the box.

"Let's play Go Fish!" he said. Go Fish was his favorite card game. He dealt the cards. I went first, asking him for twos. He called "Go fish" and I drew a card. He asked for fours. I called "Go fish" and he drew. This went on for a good while. Suddenly, I started hearing thumping in the hallway.

"Andy, stay right here," I told him. I got up to check out the thumping.

"Where ya goin'?" he called from the living room. I didn't answer. I was too focused on the weird noises. They led me to a hidden dumbwaiter in the wall. I could've sworn I heard a faint cry for help through the wall. I desperately opened the rusty doors, finding the dumbwaiter empty. I heard the thumping again, but it was higher. _Should I? _I thought. I made up my mind. I climbed into the small space and pulled on the rope. As I ascended from the first floor, I felt something cold behind me, breathing on my neck. Cautiously, I turned around to find the burnt boy staring at me with those intense eyes. Before I could scream, he put a charred hand over my mouth. I could feel the color drain from my face as he put a black finger over his equally black lips. He slowly dropped his hand from my mouth. I backed into the corner of the dumbwaiter, as far away from _him_ as possible.

"Who are you?" escaped my quivering lips. I tried to make out what was left of his face, but it was charred beyond recognition. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a small gargle. He tried again, but got the same result. His eyes told me he was desperate to tell me who he was. His eyes… I took another look at them. They were the same color as Jonah's. _Jonah._

"…Jonah? Are you Jonah Aickman?" I asked him. He nodded his head vigorously. He grabbed hold of the rope and pulled on it hard, sending us flying. "Where are you taking me?" I asked; my heartbeat was tripling. He stopped pulling on the rope and opened a narrow passageway. He crawled through, and held out his hand for me. I took it hesitantly, not wanting to go into another flashback that didn't belong to me. I crawled through the small opening and found myself in a dark room with a furnace in the middle. Jonah pointed at the furnace. I followed his finger and inspected what was inside.

There were ashes, of course, but I saw something strange. There were small fragments of a charred skull and smaller bones, and it looked like there were pieces of burnt clothing, too.

"Jonah…" I said, turning around to face him. He looked at me with sad eyes. "Are those your remains in the furnace?" He solemnly nodded his head. I think I saw tears forming in his eyes. This was so sad. I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do, so I walked over to him and gave him an awkward hug. "I'm sorry," I whispered in his ear, his burnt, charred ear. After we let go, he took my hand in his and lead me back to the dumbwaiter. We climbed in and he lowered us back down to the first floor. We climbed out of the hallway opening. I walked into the living room, finding the spirit of a little dead boy about Andrew's age, trying to play with Andrew. Of course, he couldn't see the little boy trying to pick up the deck of cards with his blue hands with the strange writing on them, white eyes determined. Both boys turned around to look at me.

"Hey, uh, Andy, I'm getting kinda tired of Go Fish," I told him, trying to get him away from the little dead boy. I gave Jonah a look, and he shooed the little spirit off. By the way the boy left, I assumed that either he wasn't supposed to be there, or he was afraid of Jonah. I started putting the cards back in the box, watching the little boy phase through the wall.

"Aw, Charlotte! One more game!" Andrew whined.

"No, Andy. You and I both know we have homework," I told him. He hung his head low and sulked upstairs to his room. _Thank God he's gone,_ I thought to myself. I turned around, remembering that Jonah was still here. He looked at me with longing eyes, like he needed to tell me something important.

"Are you OK?" I asked him. He shook his head. "What's wrong then?" I asked. He pointed to his throat, then to his mouth. _He can't talk, you idiot! _I told myself. "Follow me," I told him. His face lit up a little as we ascended the stairs. I led him to my room. I got out one of my unused spiral notebooks and a pen. "You can write, can't you?" I asked him, handing him the notebook and pen. He nodded and flipped to a fresh page. He sat down and started writing rapidly. This must've been really important. I sat down next to him and watched him write. He wrote in neat cursive. It was similar to the handwriting in the box. He finished and gave me the notebook. It said:

_Oh, God, you would not have any idea how long I have been waiting for someone to talk to! Something terrible happened to me nearly ninety years ago. Those ashes you found in the furnace, they are mine. Somehow, I ended up hiding in the furnace, and it turned on by itself. I know that sounds utterly mad, but you need to believe me. I would send you into a vision, but I am much too weak to do so right now. I am sorry I cannot give you many details, but I cannot remember everything that happened that night. Please, please help me._

"Can you really not remember what happened that night?" I asked him. He shook his head no, sadness in his eyes. My door opened; Mom popped her head in the doorway.

"Hey, sweetie! I was wondering where you were," she said. I greeted her back and told her I was just doing homework. She asked me if Domino's pizza was OK for dinner and I said yes.

"Um, Char, who were you talking to earlier?" she asked. I thought of something quick.

"I wasn't talking to anyone," I lied.

"Hmm, strange, I could've sworn I heard you talking to someone. I guess I'm losing my mind," she mumbled, closing the door behind her. I turned my head to where Jonah was sitting. He wasn't there anymore.

"I guess I'm on my own again," I muttered. I had to help Jonah. So _he _was the one giving me visions! But why? I guess I'll have to figure that one out myself, too.


	6. Looking In Someone Else's Eyes

**A/N: **V and I sorta wrote this chapter together. She wrote most of it, but I had to write the lyrics down in a certain way, so she left that to me. She did write the poem for this chapter, too. I used the song _Just the Way You Are_ by Bruno Mars, so all rights go to him and whoever else owns it. This one is in Jonah's POV! :D ENJOY!

_SING ALONG TO THE SONG IF YOU LOVE JONAH! *_Cause, girl, you're amazing just the way you aaaaaaaare!*

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**6**

**Looking In Someone Else's Eyes**

**You really don't know the full story,  
****If you're looking at it in your point of view,  
****Like if you're a wolf on the hunt,  
****The deer sees you as an evil carnivore,  
****But the wolf looks at the deer as its survival,  
****Either way we have to be aware,  
****Not everything is how it seems,  
****And even though we are entitled to an opinion,  
****Others have opinions too.  
**_The Wolf's View, _Victoria Burgess

_C__harlotte...my only way out of here, the only one who can see me, the only one who can help me,_ I thought as I watched her paint. Every brush stroke, every detail she added, made me wish she could see me as not the dead boy in the furnace, but just_ me_, Jonah Aickman. I knew since day one, she would be the one to help, but the emotions I feel for her are so mixed I can not describe them.

It's like I _want _her to keep me here so I can be with her, but she seems as if she would be more than happy to get rid of me. Although, I have grown quite tired of this house and want to leave, it's just that I don't want to have feelings for her, since it could not happen because I am dead, a mere spirit doomed to haunt this house, and almost 105 years of age, and she is living, has a happy family, and is quite young.

I stared at the painting she had almost completed and I could tell what it was already. It was my ashes, and beside them was a picture of a transparent me, looking down on upon them as if I was hoping they'd be gone. She stepped back and observed the painting, then started painting once again. It was incredible that she has that much talent.

Then, the radio started playing, and a man's voice was shouting "This is _Just the Way You Are _by Bruno Mars! Stay tuned on 102 KZ, giving you the hottest hits of today!" Charlotte rushed over and turned up the radio and started dancing and singing while she was painting.

_Oh, her eyes, her eyes make the stars look like they're not shining,_

Was this singer reading my mind? I thought she had the most beautiful eyes. They were a light green, but they would always turn blue in the right light.

_Her hair, her hair falls perfectly without her trying,_

Her auburn-colored hair… It looked so soft and pretty. Her loose curls framed her round face perfectly. It reached down to her mid-back. Her bangs kept falling into her face, and I thought she looked somewhat angelic, but she would always move them back out of the way, letting the appearance last for a few seconds.

_She's so beautiful, and I tell her every day_

Oh, if only she could hear me! I would always stand in the corner of her bedroom and watch her apply her makeup. She could never decide what type of cosmetics to use, and I would always tell her I thought she looked great no matter what she used. But, nevertheless, she couldn't hear my opinion.

_Yeah, I know, I know when I compliment her, she won't believe me_

I've tried to tell her she looks good in anything she wears, but I know she can't hear me. And if she could, she would probably reject it.

_And it's so, it's so sad to think she don't see what I see_

I hated it when she put herself down. She was always calling herself "ugly" and "fat" when she knew she wasn't. If only I could let her know that she's none of those things…

_But, every time she asks me "Do I look OK?" I say_

Of course I know she was never talking to me, but I was always there when she asked her mother if her clothes or makeup looked alright. I wanted so bad to scream "You're beautiful!" but I always fought the urge.

_When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change,_

Her round features, her freckles, her button nose, her high cheekbones, her thin eyebrows, her long eyelashes, her full lips… they were perfect.

_Because you're amazing just the way you are_

I never knew a girl could be so amazing. She was pretty, athletic, artistic, and alive. She was _so_ out of my league…What I would give to be breathing again…

_And when you smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while_

Her smile was dazzling. She had pearly white teeth. They were a bit crooked at the bottom, but hey, no one is perfect. Oh, and the way her lips framed her mouth…

_Because you're amazing just the way you are_

She completely blows my mind. I had hardly ever been acquainted with girls when I was alive, but boy, the ones I had met could never compare with Charlotte.

_Her lips, her lips, I could kiss them all day if she'd let me,_

Oh, to be alive again! I had never kissed a girl before since I never really knew any, and I wouldn't mind kissing Charlotte. I had tried kissing her before, but she always moved when I gave an attempt. Besides, she probably wouldn't be able to feel it.

_Her laugh, her laugh she hates, but I think it's so sexy_

It was throaty and kind of deep, but not masculine. She always stopped herself when she laughed, and I hated it when she did. I could listen to her laugh all day, maybe for an eternity.

_She's so beautiful, and I tell her every day_

Sometimes, when she's crying in her room, I'll sit on her bed beside her and whisper sweet things in her ear such as "You're so beautiful," in hopes she can hear me.

_Oh, you know, you know, you know, I'd never ask you to change_

Why would I? She was flawless.

_If perfect's what you're searching for, then just stay the same_

Seriously! She was always trying to change her appearance to "fit in" at school. She is perfect just the way she is, and I wish she would realize that, too.

_So don't even bother asking if you look OK, you know I say_

"You're beautiful." I know, I know, she can't hear me, but that is what I would say. Or, at least, what I want to say…

The chorus played again. I tilted my head up to the sky and muttered "Ugh! Why do you torture me with the lyrics of this song? And_ right now_ of all times," I looked at Charlotte who had not heard me talking and was busily trying to paint and dance at the same time, which made me laugh. Charlotte has made me happy again, which is yet another reason of why I have such feelings for her. I don't remember the last time someone made me smile since that night…

As a matter of fact, I do not remember almost anything that happened that night except for the furnace. I remember the running and hiding in the dumbwaiter, but I don't remember _why _I was running or who I was running from. I remember the door opening to the furnace and me crawling inside yelling for help…But, most of all, I remember the pain, the flames burning my skin, the feeling of being trapped, the feeling of sorrow and doubt.

Then I remember waking up in the furnace, as if it were a dream, how I walked through the door of the furnace, and how my father was outside the furnace waiting for me. And from that moment on, I've been stuck here waiting for someone to rescue me. But, my father can see me like I was before the "accident" and Charlotte sees me burned and looking as if I were to crumble to ashes right then.

The song went off and Charlotte proceeded to paint. I walked over next to her and stared at her. Her eyes were wandering the room now and her breathing was heavier since she could obviously feel my presence. I knew her heartbeat was speeding up. I envied her so much.

"Jonah, is that you?" she said softly. I brushed a stray hair of her shoulder in response. She inhaled deeply, closed her eyes, smiled, and relaxed her muscles. _I think she's becoming used to me being here, and I think she's realized I won't hurt her as well, _I thought.

I feel stronger, like I have more energy around her, like I'm almost human again... Suddenly, I was being dragged by my shirt collar (which I've become used to) and I felt the energy drain from within me. I passed through the autopsy room door and stood up. I turned around and saw my father standing close to my face and giving me an angry look (which again I am used to).

"_What do you think you were doing?"_ he yelled at me.

"N-N-Nothing sir I was just-" I stammered. I glanced through the window to make sure Charlotte couldn't hear him. He smacked my face, getting my attention.

"Don't you know we are trying to get them _OUT_ of this house and out of our hair?" he yelled, cutting me off.

"I was only observing the girl," I murmured, feeling the pain travel across my face.

"We are not here to be _observing _them, Jonah!" he yelled.

"Father, you have no room to talk since you were the one who was _observing_ the child in the cradle!" I retorted.

"I was trying to get the infant to cry so the older one would come to its aid and see me!" he spat back in reply.

"Sir, _why_ do you want to be here anyway? Wouldn't you rather want to be out of this old house?" I questioned him.

"No," he replied plainly. "I'd rather be here with my creations," he said, referring to the bodies he performed necromancy on.

"Those aren't _my_ creations though, and frankly, I'll never be able to learn necromancy now," I replied with my head down.

"You can still _learn_ Jonah, but not really perform it," he replied. "And honestly, I wouldn't want to be here without my son," he said looking at me sternly. I nodded my head and my father vanished.

I walked through the autopsy room door and saw Charlotte's painting, which was now done. It was beautiful and a true work of art. I gazed at it for a moment, and then walked upstairs. Her family was eating at the table, laughing at the infant since she was spitting mushed peas out of her mouth. _Now who am I to take this away from her?_ I thought.

Charlotte got done eating and went to her room upstairs. She closed her bedroom door behind her and I waited outside for a moment. After a few minutes, I figured she was asleep and I walked through her door. When I walked in she was lying on her bed with no blankets covering her. She was sleeping in a t-shirt and men's boxers. _What?_ I thought, but I should not be too quick to judge, since I honestly don't have any room to judge at all. I sat down beside her and brushed my hand across her face. So many thoughts crossed my mind, but one stuck out the most: _How I feel about you Charlotte_, _I really am not sure._


	7. Medium

**A/N: **Heeeeeey PEOPLEZ! Sorry this one took a while! Props to V for writing the poem! Now on with the show!

_SEND ME MORE REVIEWS IF YA LURVE JONAH! _c'mon, do it for the ghost kid! ya know you want to... :D

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**7**

**Medium**

**Dusk has its moon,  
****Dawn has the sun,  
****They have to have each other,  
****Or they would require no talent  
****Like a cat needs a mouse,  
****Or a fish needs land,  
****We all have opposites  
****That all have gifts  
**_Opposite Gifts,_ Victoria Burgess

**I** felt something warm brush against my face, pushing the hair back from my forehead. Groggily, I opened my eyes and turned around to see who was sitting on my bed beside me. I saw a black figure behind me, jumping when I turned around. It was Jonah. I whispered his name and he calmed down. I turned my lamp on to see him better.

"What are you doing in here?" I asked him, watching him walk over to the notebook and scribble something down. It said: _I was just seeing if you were OK._

"Well you have a strange way of checking up on people," I chuckled. He smiled and took the notebook from me, scribbling something down again.

_This is going to sound strange, but why are you wearing men's undergarments?_

"Good question," I said. "You see, when my dad first left for the Army, he was really skinny, but when he came home for Christmas that year, these babies were too small, so he gave them to me," I explained. "They're actually pretty comfy. And besides, it's not like I wear these out in public or anything," I added. He nodded and wrote some more.

_I was just wondering. Everything is just so different now, so I just wasn't sure what to think._

"I don't blame you. A lot has changed since the '20s," I said. I looked at him while he wrote. Something was different about him. He didn't seem as burnt as usual. He handed the notebook back to me.

_You don't know the half of it. Fashion, music, culture, and just about everything else has changed since then! Well, I see it's starting to get really late. Maybe I should let you sleep now._

"Yeah, probably," I said, disappointment tinting my voice. I wanted to talk to him a bit more. Then I thought of the nightmare I had been having since I moved into the house. "Jonah, if you wouldn't mind, could you stay here until I fall asleep? I've been having this horrible nightmare for the past month, and I can't sleep," I said. If he wasn't burnt, his face would've been pretty red then. Hesitantly, he nodded his head and sat at the foot of the bed. "You can lay down with me, you know," I whispered. I know this sounded strange to him, and it sounded strange to me too. I don't know what I was thinking at the time, but I really didn't care, either.

He walked over to the other side of the bed and pulled the covers over me first before he lay down himself.

"Thank you," I whispered, snuggling up against his chest. He smelled of smoke and ash. If his heart was still beating, it would probably sound like a stampede of elephants, because mine did. I fell asleep with him draping his arm around me and pulling me closer to him, his unnatural warmth making me extremely sleepy.

I woke up the next morning to find he was gone. In his place was one of my pillows with a note attached to it. I opened the folded piece of paper. It said:

_Dearest Charlotte,_

_I'm sorry to have left you in the middle of the night, but my father caught me and dragged me back down to the basement. He says he doesn't want me to "interact" with you, but I don't care what he says anymore. Meet me in the basement when you get home from school this afternoon. I think I'm strong enough to show you something._

_-Jonah_

_P.S. Bring the notepad in case I cannot speak._

School dragged on slowly, the bus ride took forever and a day, and Andrew _would not_ leave me alone, but I finally made it home to see what Jonah needed to tell me. I grabbed the notebook and pen from my room and ran down to the basement. Just as expected, Jonah was down there waiting for me. When I walked in, he was studying my paintings like he was an art collector at a museum. He looked up and smiled at me as I walked over to him. He looked significantly different. He was still burnt, but he was nowhere near as charred as when I first met him in the dumbwaiter. He had more of a "Freddy Kruger" look to him.

"You look… different," I said.

"I feel different, too," he said.

"Whoa, you can speak! Can you roll over and beg pretty, too?" I joked. It was so nice hearing his voice. It was deep, lovely, and kinda sexy. He laughed, something I had never heard him do before, and looked me in the eye.

"Are you ready for your surprise?" he asked me, taking my hand in his. It was so warm it took me aback. You would think the kid would be as cold as ice.

"What is my surprise?" I questioned, lacing my fingers through his and smiling.

"You'll just have to find out and see," he said vaguely, grabbing hold of my other hand, closing his eyes, and inhaling deeply (even though he didn't need air). Was he going to kiss me?

Suddenly, I found myself standing next to Jonah, back in the '20s. We were in the basement, but there were black drapes over the walls, a round table in the middle of the room, a camera in the corner, and five dead bodies on the floor. Four of them were just ash and bones, but the last one was still burning. Jonah leaned over the body, tears forming in his eyes.

"Sir…?" he whispered.

"They'll be after you next," the dying body uttered. It was Ramsey. Panicking, Jonah made a break for the basement door. I followed him. We scrambled up the stairs and into the hallway. The walls started decaying, and all the doors slammed shut at once. Jonah tried opening several of them, but they wouldn't budge. Our last hope was the dumbwaiter. We climbed in hurriedly and he pulled on the rope as fast as he could. He stopped at the opening that led to the furnace. He pushed it open, but the door leading to the room shut by itself, leaving the furnace the only way. He crawled through desperately. I screamed and shouted at him to stop, but of course he couldn't hear me. He sat in the furnace and pulled his knees up to his chin, and then the furnace turned on by itself. I sat there in complete horror as I watched his body turn into barbeque, his screams of pain and torture ringing in my ears over and over again. I wanted to help him. I yearned so much to pull him out and tell him it was all a dream. I also knew I wouldn't be able to do that. I closed my eyes and rubbed them.

When I opened them, I was back in the 21st Century, back with the ghost of Jonah holding my hands. He was back to his burnt stage. He drew in a sharp breath and fainted. I caught him and lay him down on the couch behind me.

"Jonah! Jonah, wake up!" I cried. I patted his cheeks until his eyes fluttered open. He opened his mouth to talk, but the little gargle came out. "Are you gonna feel like writing?" I asked. He shook his head, and then put his hand up to his forehead to keep from getting dizzier. "Just lie down and rest." I leaned over him and put my hands on his cheeks and forehead. My hands were cold, and I knew they would feel good on his burnt skin. He closed his eyes and rolled over on his side, facing the opposite side of the room. I heard Mom calling me upstairs for dinner. I told her I would be up in a second, kissed Jonah's hot-to-the-touch forehead, and raced upstairs.

"Can you set the table, sweetie?" Mom asked me. I nodded my head and pulled a few plates out of the cabinet. I set them on the table and turned around to get some silverware. When I faced the table again, the dishes were gone. I looked around the room. They were back in the cabinet. _Wha? _I thought. It couldn't have been Andrew, seeing that he wasn't even in the room, and it couldn't have been Mom because she was fixing dinner, Jonah was asleep on the couch, and Piper can't even reach the table. I turned back to the table to set the forks down, when suddenly I heard a _crash!_ I looked down to find the missing plates shattered behind my feet.

"What was that?" Mom and Andrew screamed simultaneously, Andy sticking his head in the kitchen door.

"I, uh, dropped the plates on accident," I lied.

"You need to be more careful!" Mom scolded. "Now, pick it up!"

"Yes, ma'am," I mumbled. I walked over to the broom and dustpan and walked back to the mess. When I looked down, there was a secret message hidden in the broken dishes. In huge capital letters, there lay the word _MEDIUM_. What was that supposed to mean?

I swept up the mess before anyone else could see it. Mom got Piper out of her room and sat her in her highchair. I brought down a few more plates and set them on the table. After dinner, I raced back down to the basement to confront Jonah. When I got down there, I discovered that he wasn't asleep on the couch anymore. I walked to the bathroom in the corner of the room and turned on the sink faucet. I closed my eyes and slashed my face with cold water. _What does all this mean? Why was Jonah trapped in the furnace? Why am I the only one who can see him? Why me?_ All these questions raced through my head as the water splashed my face. I opened my eyes and screamed. Instead of water, there was a thick, red liquid, _blood_, all over my face and hands. There was a pool of it in the sink, too. I heard Mom race down the stairs and rush into the bathroom.

"What's wrong?" she asked, studying my dumbfounded face. I snapped out of my trance.

"I… I thought I saw a Black Widow," I lied. I have been doing a lot of lying lately. God isn't going to be happy with me!

"Good God, Charlotte! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" she said, putting her hand over her heart.

"I'm sorry," I whispered as she left the basement. When I looked out the bathroom door, I saw Jonah writing something down in the notebook. I walked over to him.

"You got some explaining to do!" I rasped. I was not too happy with him. He handed me the notebook.

_Look, Charlotte, I am terribly sorry! I wanted to tell you earlier, but I was too weak. Charlotte, I think you are a medium._

"A _medium_? What makes you think that?" I asked.

_Well, seeing as you are the _only_ person who can see me, you are seeing dead people, you're having visions, and you just had a traumatic experience in the bathroom… There are plenty of reasons for me to think you are a medium._

"Well when you put it that way…" I said. Why is this happening to me?

_It really isn't that bad. You tend to get used to it after a while._

"But I don't _want _to get used to it! I want my life to go back to normal again!" I yelled.

_Calm down! It's okay! Look, Charlotte, if you help me figure out what happened to me the night I died, then I will be out of the house for good. I need you._

"Jonah, I'm trying to help you, but I don't think I can take it!"

_Please, I really need you. I think you're my charge._

"Your, what?"

_My charge. When a medium discovers their powers, they are assigned a spirit to charge. And I think you're mine. Have you not noticed how my appearance has changed in the last few days?_

He was right. He had changed a lot in the last few days. He went from a French fry stuck in the fryer to Freddy Kruger in three days. Had _I _been doing that? I heard my mom calling from upstairs, telling me to go to bed.

"C'mon, you're sleeping with me again tonight. I'm tired of passing that stupid notebook back and forth," I told him. We walked back to my room. He waited outside while I got dressed for bed. I called him into my room. Maybe this would help him strengthen up. I needed to know more about this whole charge thing, and I needed to know soon.


	8. Consequences

**A/N:** Sorry this took a little while to update. V had a busy schedule and finally wrote it today. Props to her for the chappie and poem! And now on with the show!

_STOMP RAMSEY'S FACE IN IF YOU LOVE JONAH! *puts on cleats with super-sharp spikes*_ GET OVER HERE RAMSEY!

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**8**

**Consequences**

**The happiness we have,  
****Just by simply spending time together,  
****Will always have its problems,  
****For Instance we can laugh,  
****But no one will ever know our joy,  
****We could cry our shameless tears,  
****And no one would ever dry them,  
****Everyone has a simple joy,  
****But it will always meet with grief and sorrow.  
**_Joy and Its Grief, _Victoria Burgess

**T**hinking about Jonah and everything that's happened has really given me inspiration to paint. There hasn't been a thought that passed by about Jonah that I didn't paint. I just finished my latest creation; it was Jonah in the dumbwaiter while I was crouched next to him as he tried to figure a way out of his mental prison.

I started adding more detail to the painting as I heard someone creeping down the stairs to the basement. "Hello?" I called out.

"Hey Char-Char!" yelled Andy as he ran towards me.

"Andy, don't do that, please," I said giving him a smile

"Do what?" he asked childishly. "I wanted to help you clean up since you haven't been upstairs all day. I was starting to get lonely," he responded with an innocent look in his eyes.

"Oh, well you could help me by putting my paint in the cabinet over there," I told him. He nodded and grinned as he grabbed the paints. I started washing my paint brushes off as I heard a _THUNK_. I turned around quickly just to see all my paints splattered on the floor and Andy gaping at the mess in surprise. "Andy! Could you be more careful?" I said in a loud voice

"It wasn't me! It felt like something pushed me and I dropped 'em!" he replied quickly. _Oh God,_ I thought to myself. I had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it wasn't Jonah this time.

"Andy, let's go upstairs and get some paper towels to clean this up." I said as I pushed him up the stairs. He looked at me oddly as he got through the door. We grabbed a roll of paper towels and I went through the door first just in case there was a spirit in the room. As I walked in the door I heard a _SLAM _and I heard the lock _click_. I turned around. The door was shut; I grabbed the door knob quickly and tried to turn it, but it wouldn't budge.

"Charlotte!" Andy yelled through the door; he was obviously trying to open the door too. I got down and put my eye to the key hole to see Andy. As I looked through something white fell out of the key hole. I looked down and looked at the white thing squirming across the floor and I realized it was a _maggot_!

"Eww!" I yelled, looking at the wriggling parasite. I looked back at the key hole and my heart started beating faster as I saw tons of little white worms falling from the key hole. I tried to scream, but my mouth was clamped shut. I ran down the stairs. My hand slid down the railing as I heard my feet hit the old, wooden stairs. I let go of the railing and I saw something red on my hand and realized blood was all over my palm. I looked up from my bloody hand and saw that the _walls_ were _bleeding,_ and it was coming down in waterfalls. I felt the color flush from my face and my whole body started shaking violently. I turned around only to see the face of Ramsey Aickman staring at me in an angry way.

My feet came off the floor, my head hit the ceiling, and I felt like I was being choked. An invisible force slammed me up against the bleeding wall.

"Aw, you poor helpless little thing," Ramsey chuckled evilly. "I understand you're just trying to help my boy, but while I am here you'll never be help to him. He doesn't _need_ your help and he'll realize that sooner or later." Ramsey said angrily. I felt the blood from the walls ooze down my back and I was trying to breathe, but I wasn't succeeding. "Jonah," I choked as Ramsey stared at me with a burning passion of hate gleaming in his eyes. _Is he going to kill me?_ I thought.

He was choking me telepathically; he didn't need to lay a hand on me. So how do I escape if I have no hands to pull away from?

"Listen _medium_. You may be my son's charge, but there is no way in this Earth I will ever let my son free or let you help him be set free. And if you know what is good for you, your family, and your lungs, you'll stay away from him or," he said getting close to my ear, _"__I will__ kill __you, and I won't think__ twice __about doing so,"_ he hissed. He disappeared and I dropped from the ceiling and hit the basement floor. I was literally gasping for breath.

The blood on the walls was gone, there were no maggots, and I was completely dry and not a scar was on me. With what little breath I had, I mumbled, "_You__ trash bag__!"_ I heard the tumbler to the basement door click and Andy ran down the stairs.

"CHAR-CHAR! Are you ok? What happened?" he said with a worried tone in his voice.

"I...closed the door behind me and it locked on accident and I fell down the stairs," I lied and I felt my pupils get larger.

"Then why are you out of breath?" he asked.

"Well Andy, when you fall down a flight of stairs, you tend to lose your breath," I said, trying not to pass out.

"Here you stay here and I'll get you a-" Andy replied.

"Wait, Andy, how did you get in here?" I asked, cutting him off.

"I got that key from your dresser. At first, I looked in Mom's stuff, but she didn't have a key, so I went in your room," he said plainly

"Andy, what else did you see in my dresser?" I said loudly.

"Just that box and a few other things, but I didn't look at anything. All I got was the key. Don't be mad; I was worried about you. I swear I didn't see anything else!" he said defensively. I stared at him, trying to see if his pupils got bigger, but they stayed exactly the same.

"Ok, I'm sorry I snapped at you. It's just that Mom doesn't need to know about that stuff, OK? Let it be our little secret. And you can't tell anyone else. Understand?" I asked him seriously.

"Sure, I promise I won't tell anyone at all. Pinkie promise." he said, holding up his pinkie finger. I laughed at him and hooked my pinky around his. We cleaned up the paint and went back upstairs.

Mom came home a little while after we cleaned up, and I gave Andy a look that said _keep your promise,_ and he kept quiet. After a couple minutes of Mom giving Andy and me the third degree about the paper towels in the trash can, I went upstairs to my room, and Mom left to take care of Piper. As I went to my room, Jonah was sitting at the foot of my bed. He looked a little bit better. He hadn't quite got past the Freddy Kruger stage, but he wasn't as burnt. I sat down on the bed beside him and stared at him. He noticed something was bothering me.

"What's wrong?" he asked with a solemn look on his face. His voice had gotten a lot better; it wasn't as scratchy and it sounded more normal, but it was still _very_ hot.

"I had a little run-in with your dad," I said, looking at my feet. He stood up quickly.

"Charlotte? What did he do to you?" he asked angrily. He looked as if he was going to explode with anger; it was like he knew that he had hurt me. I explained to Jonah everything that had happened in the basement; how his dad threatened and choked me, the blood, and the maggots. I basically spilled my guts.

After I finished explaining, I got up and put the skeleton key back in my drawer. Jonah walked beside me and put his hand on my shoulder. His warm hand made me feel a bit better inside.

"I'll take care of my father. And don't worry about his threat. If he lays a hand on you or your family, I'll show no mercy on him." he said reassuringly. I turned around and looked at him.

"Well, I know I'm supposed to help you and all, but this is starting to scare me, Jonah," I told him, looking straight in his eyes. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to my family," I said as tears came into my eyes. I started thinking of what might happen to them if I didn't help get rid of these spirits quick. I pushed away those thoughts and Jonah stared at me.

"I will _not_ let anything to your family and believe me when I say that," he replied with a stern look. He hugged me, and then disappeared. I changed into my pajamas and went to bed.

As I lay down, I fell asleep almost immediately. I had a strange dream. I was in a large black room and Jonah was standing near me. He took my hand and we walked forward in the darkness. As we walked forward, something grabbed me from behind. It was my mother. She was pulling me towards her and Jonah only stared at her. My dad showed up next to her and Ramsey appeared and stole them and Jonah away. And I was left alone in the dark room with no one beside me. All alone…


	9. Reinforcements

**A/N:** Hey guys! Sorry this took a while. This is my longest chapter so far, and I think that's why. On MS Word, it took up 6 1/4 pages! Anyway, on with the show!

_SEND ME THE MOST RANDOM REVIEW EVER IF YOU LOVE JONAH! _I can't wait to see this...

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**9**

**Reinforcements**

**No one can do everything,  
****Not by themselves anyway,  
****Some of us need a savior,  
****A friend when we are in need,  
****Someone to give us advice  
****To listen and understand,  
****Not to judge and ignore,  
****But to be helpful  
**_Needing Help,_ Victoria Burgess

**I**found myself crying in the middle of the night. I guess I had woken up from my dream and didn't realize it. I looked over at the clock on my dresser; it was 2:19 A.M. I rolled over and saw Jonah standing in the corner of my room. He nearly blended in with the shadows of my dark purple walls.

"Are you OK? I heard you weeping and came in to see if you were alright, but you were still asleep," he whispered, concern coating his voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I had the most terrible dream, though," I answered, sitting up in my bed. My voice was shaking, causing me to stutter when I told him what had happened.

"Charlotte, you know I would never let him do that to you," he told me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.

"I know," I whispered into his chest. I let the tears flow from my tear ducts, dampening his dark shirt. He didn't really seem to mind, seeing that he pulled me closer to him. He patted my tangled hair and kissed the top of my head.

"Lay down. You have to go to school tomorrow," he whispered in my ear.

"Stay in here with me," I pleaded. I didn't want him to leave. _Ever._ I pulled the covers back over my torso and Jonah lay down beside me. "Don't leave me tonight," I said.

"But what if Father sees me?"

"Tell him to get out."

"It's not all that simple."

"Oh, well. He'll get over it."

"Then he'll come in here and drag me out of bed and yell at me. And probably beat me, too."

"You know what, Jonah?"

"What?"

"Shut up and sleep."

"OK."

A few minutes later, I heard him snoring softly. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I started thinking of ways to help these poor spirits escape the house. The one that kept coming to mind was a Catholic priest. The thing was, I didn't know any priests, and I'm not Catholic. Would he still help me even though I didn't believe in the same teachings as him?

After a long, restless night, I slid out from under Jonah's arm. Surprisingly, Ramsey never came in and snatched him away. Jonah looked amazing. He still had minor burns and scar tissue, but he looked almost normal again. I hadn't realized how attractive he was until now. His short black hair, his blue-green eyes, his long nose, his lips, his voice, his smile, his slender figure, everything about him suddenly became attractive. He was still asleep, and he had a peaceful look to him. I didn't want to wake him up, but I needed to get dressed for school. I walked over to his side of the bed and gently shook his shoulders. His eyes fluttered open.

"Good morning, sleepy head," I giggled. He smiled up at me. I think my heart momentarily melted right then.

"How did you sleep last night?" he asked.

"Not one wink," I told him.

"So I stayed in here for no reason?" he laughed.

"No, I still needed you to stay in here. I would've been scared out of my mind if you hadn't of came along," I said truthfully. "Plus, you look better now than you did yesterday. Now, get out. I gotta get changed."

He left the room and I threw a blue t-shirt and a pair of holey jeans on. I brushed my hair and teeth and put some makeup on. When I was putting on my makeup, I saw someone out of the corner of my eye, standing in the corner of my room. At first I thought it was Jonah, but I looked again. It was Ramsey.

"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" I screamed. When I turned around, he was gone. That was the last straw. I was going to contact a priest somehow.

I got to school and found one of my friends, Cassie Letterman. She was Catholic, so she had to know a priest.

"Hey Cassie, can I ask you something?" I asked her.

"Sure. What may your question be?" she said.

"You're Catholic, right?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I need to know the name of your church's pastor. I've been having… problems… lately." I chose my words carefully, not wanting to tell her my house was haunted.

"Um, OK. His name is Father Michael Begley. Whatever's going on, I think he can help you. He's helped my family through a lot," she said. Her parents were on the verge of getting a divorce a few years ago, so I guess Father Begley helped them get back together.

"Thanks," I said. She nodded her head and we walked to our classes. School ended and I grabbed our home phone as soon as I had gotten home. Mom was still at work, so she wouldn't be able to hear my conversation. I got the phonebook and looked up Father Begley's number. The phone rang three times, and then an older man's voice came through.

"Father Michael Begley speaking," the man said. My heart started racing a bit. How was I going to tell him what was going on in the house?

"Father Begley? This is Charlotte Jones. I've been experiencing strange things while I've been living in my house," I said. "My friend, Cassie Letterman, goes to the church you pastor and said you could help me."

"Ah, and what kind of experiences have you encountered?" he asked in a soft voice.

"I've been seeing visions, entities, and hearing voices. Father, I think I might possibly be a medium, but I don't have the slightest idea how to use and or control my gift."

"That's perfectly OK. I can help you with that. Now how old are you?" That was a weird question.

"Fourteen; I'll be fifteen November 24, next month," I answered.

"Ah, you're a late bloomer. Well, will tomorrow be a good time for me to come over to investigate?" he asked. This was perfect. Mom had to work from ten to six tomorrow.

"Yes, sir, perfect."

"Where do you live?" he asked. I gave him my address. He thanked me and told me he would be here around four or so the next day.

"See you tomorrow," I said. He bid me farewell and I hung the phone up.

"Who was that?" Andrew asked me when I entered the living room.

"Oh, someone I know," I lied. "Andy, someone special is going to be coming over tomorrow, so don't tell Mom. This is gonna be part of our little secret, OK?" I told him.

"OK. So who's coming over?" he quizzed. Dang, this kid was full of questions!

"A man who's gonna help me solve a mystery."

"Ooh, I wanna help!"

_Dern it! Dern it to heck!_

"No, Andy. This is a grown-up thing," I said. He started pouting and whining and screaming. "Shut up, Andy! The neighbors are gonna hear you!"

"But I wanna help!"

"OK, OK, if you be quiet, I will play Go Fish with you _whenever _you want, and I will let you win every time," I bargained.

"OK!" he agreed. Man that kid is easy to persuade! He ran upstairs to his room. I walked the opposite direction to the basement. I had to tell Jonah my plan. I saw him fingering some of my older paintings from when we first moved into the house. He turned his head in my direction when I reached the last step.

"I heard you on the phone. My father is going to kill you," he said.

"What happened to the whole 'I'll protect you' thing?" I asked, a smirk creeping across my face. My heart started skipping beats when he smiled back.

"I'll try what I can, but you know how much stronger he is than me. How did you learn to draw so well?" he asked, pointing to one of my sketches of him performing one of his minor séances.

"I dunno. I taught myself. I've been drawing since I was little," I shrugged. I never really got a lot of feedback for my artwork. I could feel the blood rising to my face.

"It looks almost realistic," he gushed enthusiastically. Wow, he really needed to get out more when he was alive. I shrugged and looked at my other paintings.

"Thanks. Not a whole lot of people get the privilege of seeing my work," I told him, tucking my hair behind my ear in embarrassment.

"Well I think you're the next van Gough," he whispered in my ear, sending pleasant chills down my spine. Almost everything he did gave me those chills. I smiled and looked away from him, not wanting him to see my crimson red face. My feelings for him were changing right then and there. I remember being terrified of him, and now I didn't know how I felt about him. Was I, daresay, _falling in love_?

A slamming door from upstairs broke my thoughts. Mom was home.

"Aw, crap, I got homework to do," I remembered. I wanted to get out of the basement. I knew Ramsey was near, and I didn't want him to see me fall for his son right there in front of him. I took my homework into the living room and simultaneously watched TV and worked on world history homework. Mom had relieved me of my punishment early, for reasons unknown. I guess because Dad had called. When I was done, I started watching Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. Jonah walked into the room and sat beside me.

"That's just disturbing," he said as we watched Mike Rowe (the host of the show) shovel some kind of animal dung into a gigantic dumpster truck.

"Yeah, well somebody's gotta do it," I said.

"Touché," he said. I flipped through the channels, but found nothing else to watch. I wasn't really ever watching Dirty Jobs, either. Then I found the movie _The Princess Bride_ on one of our movie channels. Oh great, a love story. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, I felt Jonah slide his fingers across my palm and lace them between my fingers. I glanced at him and squeezed his hand lightly, feeling my cheeks start to burn. A few more hours had passed after the movie had ended, and we were still holding hands. Mom called from her room telling Andrew and me to go to bed. I turned the TV off, and Jonah and I walked to my room. He waited outside for me to get dressed, and then lay down in the bed beside me. We fell asleep, and I dreamed of him and me running away from the house, all our problems, and Ramsey. Of course, that could probably never happen.

The next morning, Jonah looked completely normal. He rolled up his sleeves and marveled at his newly healed arms. That was the first time I had ever seen them. They were pale, just like his face, neck, and hands. But he made pale look hot… Good God, what am I thinking?

I told him I had to get dressed, so he left the room, almost unwillingly. I put on a long-sleeved thin sweater with black and red stripes, a pair of skinny jeans with the knees busted out, and my pair of black high-top Converses. I pulled my hair up into a high pony tail, but left two strands of hair in front of my ears, along with my bangs. I ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, put on my makeup, and left for school. School dragged on slowly, but it finally ended. While I waited for Father Begley, I told Jonah that he needed to get Ramsey to make as much noise as possible. Around thirty minutes later, the doorbell rang. I nodded at Jonah and proceeded to open the door. On my front porch was a tall, skinny older man with snow-white hair and one of those collars that priests always wear. He was carrying a Bible and a small box.

"Hello, Father Begley! Come on in," I invited. He stepped inside and studied his surroundings.

"Nice place you got here. I've heard a lot of stories about this house," he said, looking down at me.

"What kind of stories?" I asked, leading him to the dining room.

"Oh, I've heard all kinds of stories. Did you know that they held séances here back in the twenties?" he asked. _Naw dip, Sherlock, _I thought to myself.

"I've done my research," I replied. We reached the dining room and he set the Bible and box down on the table. He opened the box and pulled out two long metal strips. "What are those for?" I asked as he held them up to the wall. He walked around the room in that position.

"They're magnets. They're believed to attract the spirits."

"So, have you found anything yet?"

"Not quite yet. I think it might be best if I do this by myself," he implied politely. I took the hint and walked up to my room.

"Oh, the basement is a hotspot!" I called from upstairs. As I waited, I worked on my homework. Someone knocked on the door.

"Are you decent?" they called from behind the door. It was Jonah's voice.

"Yeah, you can come in," I said, closing my literature book. He opened the door and closed it behind him quickly.

"I made my father _mad!_ I told him his necromancy is a load of baloney!" he laughed, looking exhausted. I assumed he ran from his dad. "Now hide me, quick," he demanded, his smile fading quickly. I shoved him in my closet. Suddenly, I heard the doors in the hallway slamming rapidly and a loud, angry voice calling for Jonah, spitting foul curses left and right.

"I hope Father Begley hears him," I said. "Thanks Jonah," I whispered. Hopefully, he heard me over Ramsey's rampage. Ramsey made his way upstairs. I jumped on my bed and opened my lit book, making myself look like I didn't know what was going on. He entered my room.

"Where's Jonah?" he yelled. I looked him straight in the eye.

"I don't know. I think he went to the basement," I replied. I was surprised my voice didn't break under his furious glare. He growled disapprovingly at me and slammed my door behind him. Once I couldn't hear him stomping anymore, I told Jonah that the coast was clear.

"Thanks, Charlotte. He's going to beat the living crap out of me when he finds me," he said worriedly. I had never heard him talk like that before. He was always so polite and kind. I think I was becoming an influence on him. We sat down on my bed and waited for Father Begley to end his search. What seemed like an eternity later, he called me from downstairs.

"Did you find anything?" I asked him, hope filling up my voice.

"Actually, no, I didn't. Are you sure you've been seeing things?" he asked. _WHAT?_

"Yes, I'm absolutely _positive_ I've been seeing things! Why, I even saw _and _heard something just thirty minutes ago! Are you sure _you_ didn't see anything?" I sassed. I didn't mean to be rude, but _dang!_ How could you not hear all that yelling and slamming?

"Yes, ma'am, I am sure I didn't see anything. It was as quiet as a cemetery around here," he said quietly. "And if you don't mind, I will be leaving now."

"Look, I'm really sorry for yelling, but I promise you there is something going on in this house, and I need to get rid of it," I told him as we reached the door. He breathed deeply and told me he didn't know how to help me in my situation. I thanked him and closed the door. I turned around and slid my back down the wall until my backside hit the floor. I was so pissed off.

"I heard what happened," Jonah said quietly, sitting down beside me. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

"This sucks," I muttered, laying my head down on his shoulder. I could feel the tears starting to burn my eyes. He put his arm around my shoulders.

"We should probably get out of the floor," he said, smiling. I smiled back and wiped away a few stray tears. We walked to the living room and watched TV. About an hour later, Mom came home with Andrew and Piper. Mom checked Andrew out of school and took him to daycare sometimes, and I was extremely glad she did today.

"Hey, sweetie," Mom said tiredly. I took Piper into my arms as Mom collapsed on the couch.

"Work suckish today?" I asked. She nodded her head groggily.

"I think Andy put the dinner in the kitchen. Would you mind feeding Piper? I'm too exhausted," she informed me. I told her I would and took the baby into the kitchen. I sat her in her highchair and fed her carrot-and-pea-flavored baby food. After she was done, I took her to her room and lay her down in her crib. I went back downstairs and ate my cheeseburger and French fries from McDonald's. Jonah materialized next to me.

"How are you going to help me now?" he asked softly.

"I don't really know. I guess we're gonna have to do this ourselves. Besides, you know more about this stuff than I do," I answered.

"True," he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. We walked back to my room. I decided to turn in early, so Jonah stepped outside while I changed. I put on an over-sized white t-shirt with red sleeves and a pair of knee-length sweats. I turned out the lights and lay down in bed, snuggling up against Jonah's chest. I put my hand on the left side of his chest, where his heart is supposed to be. It was weird not feeling a heartbeat there. He was a strange little fellow; he was warm with no pulse. I fell asleep, into a deep, dreamless sleep, and then felt someone shaking me gently. I opened my eyes. It was Jonah shaking me.

"Your sister is crying," he whispered. I jerked the covers off of myself (hitting Jonah's face in the process), and ran to Piper's room. On my way there, I heard a strange noise. It sounded like wings flapping. I knew she had birds painted on her wall, but that was taking it too far. I opened the door and found myself in a giant bird cage. There were black birds flying everywhere. I stepped into the room and the door instantly slammed behind me. When I turned to the door, all fluttering stopped, and a thud came from the window. I turned back around and found the dust skirt of Piper's crib frantically being rustled. I hushed Piper's crying and stooped down to see what was under the crib. The fluttering stopped, and instead of a bird, a large foot stomped in front of my face. I jumped back and looked up at the owner of the foot. It was Ramsey. He had a look of utter distaste and furious rage permanently sewn into the creases of his ghostly face.

"What do you want?" I growled at him, sneering at him.

"For you to leave the house," he growled back, holding out his hand. Just like last time, he lifted me into the air and slammed me up against the wall again, closing up my throat and causing me to choke.

"Jonah…" I managed to say.

"He can't help you, now. No one can," he sneered. Just as he said that, Jonah burst through the door and tackled him. I instantly dropped to the floor. The wind was knocked out of my lungs, and I blacked out to the sound of crying, screaming, threats, and unrepeatable curses. What seemed like a century later, I heard Jonah's voice repeating my name, his hands gently shaking my shoulders.

"What happened?" I said groggily. I looked at his face. It was bruised and bloody. I didn't know ghosts could bleed.

"Father dropped you and you blacked out. I got him out, but got beat like a drum in the process. When I got rid of him, I hushed your sister to sleep and now I'm waking you up," he explained. He helped me up and walked me to my room. He helped me lie down on my bed and crawled in himself. Gently, he placed his warm hand on my cheek and kissed the top of my head. "Sleep now; you're really going to need it," he told me. I didn't argue. I knew for a fact that Ramsey was definitely the spawn of Satan. How did an angel like Jonah come from a demon like _him? _I fell asleep instantly. I was definitely going to feel that in the morning.


	10. SleepOver at a Haunted House

**A/N:** Sorry this took so long to update. V's power went out Thursday and she lost all of her work, so she had to re-write everything yesterday. So, this chp. is dedicated to her for all her hard work and frustruation. LURVE YOU, V!

_DO THE CHICKEN DANCE IF YOU LOVE JONAH! _(Nanananananana, nanananananana, nanananananana *CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP* hehe :D

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**10**

**Sleep Over at a Haunted House**

**Friends are forever,  
****Like trees have leaves,  
****Or a pond has water,  
****But when autumn comes,  
****Those leaves fall off,  
****And they don't come back,  
****Until spring comes 'round.  
**_Friendship's Season, _Victoria Burgess

**E**ven though that priest didn't believe me, or anybody else, I knew someone who would always believe me. I picked up the phone and dialed Jenny's number. The phone rang a couple times, and then I heard her voice on the other end.

"Charlotte! Hey, what's up?" she said in an ecstatic tone.

"Oh, just hanging out with some ghosts." I joked.

"...Seriously?" she asked.

"No, but yes, but not right-," I started to cut myself off. "Listen, I've kinda been missing my best friend lately and I was wondering if she'd like to come over to spend the night?" There was a long pause and then she finally answered.

"Sure, but I'm not gonna get hurt or anything, right?" she asked. I could understand her being worried. I mean, it's not like you should be all that excited about going to a _real _haunted house.

"You'll be fine; I'll make sure of it." I answered, trying to make myself sound reassuring.

"Okay, well I'll be around there at 6 or 7:30, and my sister's got her car back, so she'll probably be forced to drop me off," she told me. I looked at the clock and it was 4:27; I had just enough time to get everything in order.

"OK, well I'll see you then," I answered. We both hung up and I dialed Pizza Hut; I ordered a large supreme pizza and a 2 liter Pepsi. I headed upstairs to get my room cleaned up.

I walked in my room and someone shut the door behind me. I looked around and there was Jonah staring at me with a small grin.

"Hey, so I heard you on the phone," he said with a worried look on his face.

"Yeah, my friend Jenny's coming over for a sleep-over tonight," I answered as I started picking up my dirty clothes off the floor. He reached down and started to help me pick them up (I made sure I picked up my underwear), never taking his beautiful eyes off of me. God, he was hot, and so sweet… _Wait; stop yourself Charlotte, you know it could never happen between you two._

"I hope she knows about my father," he said as we started throwing the clothes in my hamper.

"Well, she knows about the fact there are spirits here, but I've never had the actual chance to tell her about you," I explained.

"You trust her with a secret like that?" he asked.

"Well, yes. I mean, she's my best friend, and I've known her almost forever," I told him. I started to make up my bed and he started to clean off my dresser.

"What's it like having a best friend?" he asked plainly. I stopped making up my bed and looked at him.

"Wait, you've never had a best friend?" I asked. _Of course he's never had a best friend, stupid! Why else would he ask? _I thought. He shook his head plainly and looked at me.

"My father didn't really let me talk to real people. Just the dead ones," he said with a sad look on his face. I walked over and I took his hand, slowly lacing my fingers through his.

"I'll be your best friend, if you want."

He stared at me intensely and replied, "You already have a best friend though."

I smiled and answered, "There's no rule saying you can't have more than one best friend." He grinned and we stood there gazing at each other. He's amazing, so why do I even try to fight these feelings I have around him? I answered my question, and started to slowly lean towards him. _No, Charlotte! Step away now!_ my mind protested, but I ignored it as I got closer to him. My head was spinning and my heart was racing, and it felt like my mind and heart were having an all-out war against each other.

Our lips were inches apart when I heard a _DING DONG_. _Pizza's __here,_ I thought. I backed away from Jonah and there was an awkward silence between us.

"I should probably get the door," I told him, breaking the silence.

"OK, but is it alright if I come back when your friend falls asleep?" he asked with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"Sure," I answered. He disappeared and I walked downstairs, silently cursing to myself. I was starting to hate Pizza Hut.

I opened the door and a tall, tan seventeen-year-old with blonde hair was holding a grocery bag with a Pepsi and a large pizza box. He reminded me of one of those guys you'd see in surfer movies.

"One large supreme pizza and a 2 liter Pepsi?" he asked with a smile _He shouldn't be so happy, he just ruined your almost-first kiss, _I thought.

"That's me," I said, trying to hide my sarcasm.

"That'll be $6.50," he said as he handed me the food. I gave him a $10 bill and I got my change back.

"Have a nice night." he said walking back to his car.

"Thanks, you too," I replied. As soon as the surfer/pizza guy pulled out of my driveway, I saw Jenny's sister's car coming down the road. She stopped at the end of our driveway and I saw Jenny climb out with her bright blue suitcase. She waved at her sister and ran to my door.

"Char, I haven't seen you in _forever_!" she said.

"I know, right? Come on in," I told her. She eyed the doorway and started to hesitate. I grabbed her hand and guided her into the house.

"Wow, I was expecting cobwebs and old dusty pictures of dead people," she said.

"Nah, it's just a regular spirit infested house," I said jokingly.

"You know if you add a little dust, some fake blood, weird sound effects, and charge $10 a person, you could probably make a fortune from this place," she said with a little laugh. I smiled and I showed her around the house. We got to my room and I helped her unpack her stuff. I looked back in the bag to make sure if we got everything, and there, sitting at the bottom of the suitcase, was a necklace stringed with rubies and diamonds and had a crucifix at the end. I picked it up out of the bag and I looked at her.

"What's this?" I asked her, holding up the necklace so she could see.

"Well... I didn't know what to bring to a haunted house," she explained, looking at the floor. I put it back in her bag and I tried to give her a reassuring smile.

"My mom's at work and Andrew and Piper are at my grandmother's house. So why don't we go eat that pizza and we'll watch _Jaws_ on Demand," I told her. She nodded in agreement and we went back down stairs. I poured us both some Pepsi and we both got _huge_ slices of pizza.

We laughed and joked and talked about school and she told me what everyone was saying about my behavior.

"Well, they're all saying your being really quiet and all the cheerleaders think you're just out for attention, but believe me, they didn't say a word after I put in how they were all being a bunch of PMSing little brats who are way too stuck up their own butts to be talking about others," she explained with an evil grin.

"Well, screw them! Oh, and thanks for having my back," I said.

"No problem. No one talks about my best friend and gets away with it," she said, taking a bite of her pizza. We put the leftover pizza in the fridge and I popped some popcorn as Jenny found _Jaws_ on Demand. We sat there eating and laughing at the gory parts whenever someone got eaten. Jenny grabbed the remote and turned down the volume and she looked at me. "Do you hear that?" she asked.

I stopped and listened hard, and I heard what she was talking about. At the window I heard a small pecking noise.

"Maybe it's a squirrel?" she asked _…or maybe it's one of those black demon birds who hit windows like murr, murr, murr, _I thought. I got up bravely and walked to the window, Jenny right behind me the whole time. I pulled the window curtain back slowly and the scratching stopped, but in scratchy handwriting in big bold letters, someone had scratched the words _GET OUT NOW_ on the window. _Ramsey,_ I thought. I looked back at Jenny and her face had turned white and her hands were trembling.

"I think I should tell you something Jenny," I said she looked at me in a confused way. I sat her on the couch. I got on the laptop and showed her everything I found about Jonah and Ramsey, and I told her about me being a medium.

"Wait, so you're a medium? And this guy-" she started.

"Jonah," I said, cutting her off.

"Yeah, whatever," she said while waving her hands. This offended me a bit. "And he's your _charge_?" she asked.

"Yep, I know I should've told you this sooner, but it took me a while to put this together myself," I explained. She looked shocked and hypnotized at the same time, and I told her to hold on. I ran upstairs and got the picture of Jonah and the vomit/goo/whatever coming from his mouth and brought it downstairs to show her. "This is the part I don't understand." I said showing her the picture. She saw it and immediately grabbed the laptop from me. She typed in something on Google search and got to this website about mediums. I saw a picture of a woman with a weird looking vomit stuff coming out of her mouth and I made Jenny scroll down so I could read the caption. It said the substance coming from her mouth was called ectoplasm and it's a gauze-like substance that makes the spirit become physical in the séance through the medium. _Eww, that_ _stuff's inside of me!_ I thought and I looked at Jenny.

"How did you know what to look up?" I asked her.

"Well, I just looked up a medium site," she answered.

Suddenly, the bulbs in the living room burst into shards of glass and the power went out. Jenny screamed and I swear my ear drum burst. I grabbed the flashlight next to the TV and we ran upstairs. We got in my room and I shut the door behind me. We sat on my bed and there were shards of glass from were my light bulbs had burst. I looked up at the ceiling and the spot were the light bulbs were supposed to be were glowing with electrical bolts. Jenny grabbed her suitcase and got the necklace with the crucifix. She grabbed my hand and started reciting the Lord's Prayer. And as she did, the power had came back on and the bulbs were no longer shards, and at the foot of my bed was a man who had been one of Ramsey's necromancy experiments. _Oh my sweet Jebus! _I thought, jumping in shock. Jenny jumped too. I grabbed her suitcase and flung it at the man and he vanished. Jenny grabbed the suitcase off the floor and started packing her clothes.

"I'm sorry Char, but I've got to get out of here!" she said, and I could tell she was panicking.

"I understand. Tell your mom you didn't feel well and be careful on your way home," I said. I didn't want to urge her to stay because just by the way she looked I knew it wouldn't be good for her to. She ran downstairs and basically flung herself out the door, and as she did, I heard Ramsey chuckling.

"Go to Hell!" I yelled, and it echoed throughout the house. I ran upstairs and changed into my purple pajama pants and my black Xavier Institute t-shirt. Jonah came in and he immediately hugged me.

"My father is a monster and the devil himself wouldn't dare touch him," he said and I laughed a little at the fact that it was probably true.

"I hate him, Jonah, and he's done so much to me. I want him gone once and for all," I told him as I let my head rest on his shoulder.

"I do too, but he's stronger than both of us, but I'll never stop trying," he told me.

I lay down on my bed and he lay down beside me. I'm pretty sure he was getting used to that.

"Charlotte, I'll always be here for you, you know that, right?" he asked. I rolled over and looked at him.

"Yeah, I know, and I'll always be here for you. I mean, what are friends for?" I answered. We smiled at each other and I fell asleep with the feeling of being safe, knowing I was in Jonah's arms.


	11. Secrets

**A/N:** Sorry this took a while to upload. Busy schedule. Props to V for writing the poem. The song _Secrets_ belongs to OneRepublic and all those peoples. Now, let's get on with the show!

_SEND ME THE NAME OF YOUR FAVORITE SONG(S) IN A REVIEW IF YOU LOVE JONAH! _I have a feeling that I'm going to be doing a lot of research on this... I love listening to new songs :D

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**11**

**Secrets**

**A feeling of being boxed in,  
No one listens  
But a friend you trust,  
Is there and listening,  
****You spill your heart out,  
****You feel free,  
****And you get on with life  
**_A Secret, _Victoria Burgess

I felt Charlotte start to stir underneath my arm. I opened my eyes to find myself under the covers with her. I looked under the lavender bedspread. We were still fully dressed. I blew a silent sigh of relief as I closed my eyes and pulled her closer to my body. She still had another couple of hours to sleep. I thought about what had almost happened last night. I was going to kill that stupid pizza delivery man for ruining my chances of a first kiss, and I was going to _strangle _my father for scaring her friend off. I could not begin to tell you how embarrassed I was when I saw her friend's (was her name Jenny?) face when she left.

Charlotte rolled over and made soft grunting noises as she buried her head into my shirt. She was so beautiful. I wonder if she would ever fall for me. She seemed a little flirtatious sometimes, but I wasn't sure if that was just her personality or if she was actually flirting with me. Like I said before, I haven't had a whole lot of experience with girls.

I drifted off into a light, dreamless sleep, waking up every time Charlotte rolled over. It was starting to get harder and harder for me to fall asleep in the same bed as her. Sometimes, I would lie awake all night just to watch her sleep. I desperately needed to tell her my feelings for her, but I didn't want to ruin the friendship we have, especially since this is my first real friendship.

Hours passed, and it was time for Charlotte to wake up. I shook her gently and her eyes opened slightly. She smiled groggily as she looked at me.

"Good morning," I whispered. She started to wipe the crust from her eyes.

"Good morning," she yawned. "Jonah, why are you under the covers?" she asked in a scratchy voice.

"I was wondering the same thing, myself," I answered. "I guess I got cold or something last night."

"I didn't know you could get cold," she said, climbing out of bed.

"Me, either," I muttered, pulling back the blanket and swinging my legs over to the side of the bed. I stood up and brushed my fingers through my short black hair.

"I have to get dressed," she said.

"OK," I said, not wanting to leave her. I'm not sure of what caused me to do this, but I bent my head down and kissed her left cheek. Her whole face (and her ears) turned bright red, making her freckles stand out. I felt the same sensation spread across my face. Her eyes were wide open, revealing her pupils dominating her green irises, and her mouth was open, like she was about to say something.

"I-I, uh, b-better g-go n-n-now," I stuttered. I was so embarrassed. I ran out the door as fast as I could, leaving a flabbergasted Charlotte behind.

~*X*~

I thought about what had happened all day. Now I _really_ wasn't sure how I felt about him! I daydreamed in class, and I didn't know how to do any of my homework. At lunch, I got ketchup all over my shirt and pants. I was off in LaLa Land in cheer when I got kicked in the face. It hurt like crap. The girl who kicked me apologized over and over again and let me slap her back as payback. I gladly slapped her, and Mrs. Hampshire got some ice for my swollen eye. I sat out the rest of the period holding the baggie of crushed ice to my face. And, to end my day, I tripped getting off the bus. I fell on my knees and I scraped my elbow on the hard asphalt. Today was _not_ my day.

"Are you alright?" Jonah asked me as I popped a few motrins into my mouth.

"No." I swallowed the pills and walked to my room. I was so pissed at him for some reason. Was it that time of the month again, too? _Perfect!_

"What happened to you?" he asked worriedly as he examined my eye and elbow. I jerked my arm away from him and stormed into my room.

"Go away. I've been having a crappy day, and I want to be left alone," I told him. He looked so disappointed when I slammed the door in his face.

~*X*~

I don't know how long she stayed in her room. I sat outside of the door, listening to her sob and scream. I wanted to go into her room and comfort her, make everything better again. I was scared to knock on the door because I didn't want to make her go into a rampage. A few minutes later, her crying stopped and I heard her radio start to play music. A song with classical-sounding music came on.

_I need another story, something to get off my chest,_

I swear that radio is a mind-reader! I really needed to tell Charlotte my feelings, but I _really_ needed to tell her something that had happened while she was at school. I knocked on the door and asked her if I could come in.

"No," she said in an angry tone.

"But I need to tell you something important," I pleaded. I wonder what went through her mind as I said that.

"Fine!" she barked._  
My life gets kinda boring, need something that I can confess,_

I slipped through the door. She looked at me sternly with her arms crossed.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"My father beat me while you were at school," I said, sliding the black suspenders off my shoulders and unbuttoning my shirt to show her the evidence. It was extremely uncomfortable showing her my torso, but she needed to see the dark purple bruises on my chest and arms. All anger drained from her face as she gently touched the sore spots on my chest._  
'Til all my sleeves are stained red, from all the truth that I've said,_

"There're bloodstains on my sleeves from where I wiped the blood from my nose," I whispered, showing her the streaks of crimson on my gray sleeves._  
Come by it, honestly, I swear,_

"Jonah, I'm so sorry," she said, tears forming in her eyes. She hugged my naked torso, being careful not to put pressure on the bruises. The warmth she gave off seemed to be healing them. "Why did he beat you?"_  
Thought you saw me wink, no, I've been on the brink so  
_I was silent for a minute. I could feel the blood rising to my face for the second time today.

"…Because he saw me, uh… k-kiss you," I answered, the accursed "k-word" unwillingly escaping my lips. I hated to call it a "kiss" since she obviously didn't feel the same way.

"It was because he doesn't want you anywhere near me, too," she said. I swear I saw her left eye close.

_Tell me what you want to hear, something that will light those ears,_

"How long _has_ he been beating you?" she asked me.

"He's been beating me since I was really little. Ever since my mother died, he's been terrible to me," I said, sitting down and pulling my knees up to my chest. My mother's death was a sensitive subject to me, and I could feel the tears start to well up in my eyes._  
Sick of all the insincere,_

"Oh, well if you don't want to talk about it, then we don't have to," she said awkwardly. I guess she saw my eyes start to turn red. I wish my father was that sincere! He always made me tell him what was wrong with me, then he would yell at me to "man up!"_  
I'm gonna give all my secrets away  
_"No, no, it's alright. You see, before my mother passed, her and Father were happily married with me as their loving, perfect son. Father wasn't obsessed with necromancy and he wasn't a mortician, either. But, when Mother died of Scarlet Fever when I was four, Father lost his mind and went stark-raving mad. He became deeply obsessed with necromancy and became a 'mortician' so he could practice his rituals.

"He wanted me to become a necromancer, too, but I refused. So he beat me. He would beat me for other things too, like for speaking out of turn, not doing my chores correctly, not doing what he asked the first time, and so on and so forth," I explained. My voice broke a couple of times. I missed my mother so much, even though I didn't know her that well._  
This time, don't need another perfect lie,_

"Wow, and I thought I had it rough," I replied. "I have to lie to my mom all the time.I hate it. I've asked for God's forgiveness so many times, but I still feel the guilt every night while I try to sleep. I want to tell her what's been going on, but I know she won't believe me. I never get to see my dad, either. He's been in Iraq for so long now, I've almost forgotten what he looks like," I said sadly.

"I know your pain. I've almost forgotten what my mother looks like, too. I remember her telling me that I was her spitting image. Course, I've almost forgotten what I look like, myself. It's hard putting enough energy into seeing yourself in a mirror when you're in my position," Jonah said, laughing. I could see the longing and sadness in his eyes._  
Don't care if critics never jump in line,_

"People say I look like my dad," I said. "We have the same hair and eyes. But I _really_ look like his mother. I've only seen her in pictures, though. She died when Dad was fifteen," I said, gazing around the room. I thought back to the black-and-white pictures of my unknown grandmother, my '60s version of a reflection.

"I bet she was beautiful," Jonah whispered. I'm not sure if he meant for me to hear him, or if he was just simply thinking out loud.

"She was," I said with my cheeks burning. Was he really calling _me_ beautiful?_  
I'm gonna give all my secrets away  
_"I think you're beautiful, too," I confessed. Both our faces turned bright red.

"R-really?" she asked. I nodded my head shyly. For some reason, I felt no regret telling her one of my deepest secrets. It actually felt good telling her that. Now to tell her the rest… _  
My God, amazing how we got this far,_

"No one has ever told me that… Well, except my parents and all the elderly people I've ever came into contact with," I admitted. "But, seriously, you're the first person outside of my family that has ever told me I'm beautiful." I tucked my hair behind my ear.

"Well, there's a first for everything," Jonah smiled, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. He averted his eyes from me like I was some kind of taboo item he wasn't supposed to look at. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately._  
It's like we're chasing all those stars who's driving shiny, big, black cars_

"Funny thing is, I wanted to be an actress when I was little, but I always felt I wasn't pretty enough," she grinned.

"I think you're the prettier than all the actresses in the world combined," I said.

"You're just saying that," she said, rolling her eyes.

"No, I really mean it! Unlike those fake people you call 'actresses,' you have natural beauty. I don't think I've seen one pimple on that pretty face of yours," I smiled, running my fingertip off the end of her nose. She giggled and leaned back, getting out of my finger's reach._  
And everyday I see the news, all the problems that we could solve,  
_"Well, I'm glad I gave up my actress dream. You wouldn't believe how much trouble famous people get in these days," I told him. He laughed.

"I've seen enough on the news," he said._  
And when a situation rises, just write it into an album_

"Oh, and all those songs written about those famous people… It's pretty crazy out there," I said, smiling to myself._  
Singing straight, too cold, I don't really like my flow, no…  
_"Speaking of songs, I've heard you sing a few times. I think your voice is pretty," I told her. Her face turned a light shade of pink. "Will you sing for me?" I asked her, taking her hand in mine. She smiled and sang the first verse of _Amazing Grace_. Her voice was so lovely. She had a bit of a soulful ting to it._  
Oh, got no reason, got not shame, _

"Please, don't make me sing again. I hate singing in front of people," I pleaded.

"You have such a lovely voice! What's there to be ashamed of?" he asked me._  
Got no family I can blame, _

Something hit me like a bomb when I said that. I was ashamed of my so-called "gift" that my so-called "father" forced me to use. Thing is, he only used it for publicity. He never gave a rat's behind about me. I can't blame him, though, because I probably would've done the same thing._  
Just don't let me disappear,_

"Charlotte, this is completely off subject, but… I'm terrified of leaving the house. I'm not sure of what to do with myself when, and if, I leave," he blurted out.

"Uh, I'm not sure what I'll do when you're gone, either," I said, contemplating. Sure, he was the one who messed my life up, but I've grown close to him. So close, that I've almost kissed him._  
I'm 'a tell you everything  
_"Well, whatever we do, we have to get rid of my father first," he said. That was very, very true. I knew what was tying Jonah to the house, but I had no clue what was keeping Ramsey and the other spirits here.

"Why are they here?" I asked him.

"I… I can't remember," he said after a long pause. Well, ain't that just great?_  
So tell me what you want to hear, something that will light those ears,_

"Anything else buried down deep inside your twisted little psyche that you want to confess?" I asked him, grinning. He smiled and looked down at the bedspread, averting his eyes from me again. _  
Sick of all the insincere,_

When I followed his gaze, I realized his shirt was still unbuttoned. He had a nice figure; he wasn't a toothpick, but he wasn't muscular, either. I guess you could classify him as wiry. Once I realized that I was staring at his pale torso, I looked away, embarrassed at myself for being unladylike. My heart raced a bit. He was so hot. Why did he have to be dead?_  
So I'm gonna give all my secrets away  
_"There is one more thing I want to tell you…" I said nervously. Why was I letting this escape my mouth?_  
This time, don't need another perfect lie,_

"What?" she said. I had to tell her now. I felt something start to thump in my chest. Was… was that my heartbeat?_  
Don't care if critics never jump in line,_

"What is it?" I asked again. My heart rate was tripling now. The butterflies in my stomach started to wake up and flutter around. My head was starting to spin._  
I'm gonna give all my secrets away_

"I… I love you," I whispered. I whispered it so quietly, I could barely hear myself. My face was literally on fire. I tried not to look at her as much as I possibly could. I felt so stupid. What was wrong with me? I shouldn't be falling in love with someone with a heartbeat. And she shouldn't fall in love with someone _without _one. It wasn't supposed to be, yet somehow, it felt right saying those three words._  
All my secrets away_

"Jonah…" I whispered back. He looked up at me. I grabbed his hand and laced my fingers through his. My heart was in my throat, the butterflies in my stomach suddenly multiplied, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I took a deep breath.

"I love you, too."

_All my secrets away_

"R-really?" I exclaimed, jumping off the bed in excitement. She really did love me! The nervousness left my body, and pure ecstasy replaced it.

"And I really want to pick up where we left off yesterday," she whispered.

"Y-you mean…" I stuttered. She nodded her head and gave a crooked grin. She reached over and grabbed my hand and pulled me back down to the bed. We laced our fingers together and gazed in each other's eyes. Charlotte took a deep breath and slowly started to lean towards me. I followed her lead and leaned my head slightly sideways so my nose wouldn't bump into hers. We hesitated when our lips were just centimeters apart. I could feel her breath on my skin, and it gave me chills. Then I dove in.

I gently pressed my lips against hers. They were soft and moist, and they tasted like peppermint. She pressed back, making her lips fit perfectly into mine. After about five seconds, we pulled back. I felt like my life had been completed. I looked at Charlotte. She still had her eyes closed and she was biting her bottom lip.

"Are you okay over there?" I asked her.

"Huh? Oh, oh yeah, I'm fine. Just my first kiss is all," she said, looking up at me.

"You, too?" I said. Kissing a girl for the first time was one thing, but sharing a first kiss with someone was even better.

"Wanna make it our second?" she asked me. I replied by pressing my lips to hers again. I cupped her face with my hands and she wrapped her arms around my neck. I pulled her closer to my body as I kissed her again. She kissed me back, and then pulled away.

"My mom is home," she whispered. We let go and stood up. I started to button my shirt back up when she put her hand on mine.

"No, no, I like it that way. You're pretty sexy with your shirt undone," she told me. I blushed at her compliment and undid the buttons again. She walked downstairs and I plopped down on her bed. I tucked my hands behind my head and heaved a great sigh of relief. My love life was now complete. I kissed, professed my love to, and unbuttoned my shirt in front of a girl all in one day. My father is _so_ going to (re-)kill me when he finds out.


	12. Escaping

**A/N: **Hey guys, sorry this took a while to update. Props to V for writing the poem. I don't own HiC... yadda yadda yadda... On with the show!

_CRANK DAT SOULJA BOY IF YOU LOVE JONAH! _sorry, I just had to!

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**12**

**Escaping**

**You never know how to escape,  
****Unless you take some risks,  
****A bird can never fly,  
****Until it leaves the nest,  
****A snake can never know if it's deadly,  
****Unless it takes its turn to strike,  
****No one can learn,  
****If they don't experiment,  
****Be free and take chances.  
**_Risk it All, _Victoria Burgess

Kissing Charlotte had seemed to make life easier; it was like I was floating on air (and I was). I was humming the tune to that _Secrets_ song and my heart had been soaring. She seemed-no wait she_ was-_like the light of my life and she had stolen my heart...Oh, God now all this love has made me sound all mushy. My father had not said a word to me about it, hopefully because he didn't see it, and not that he was saving his energy to have a boxing practice on my face.

I had seen him plenty of times after the kiss and he had seen me, but he just went right along with his normal obsessive attitude over necromancy. He had said an occasional "Hello" and "Leave me to my work" and just stood there admiring his "creations." When I realized he had not seen the kiss, relief flooded my body and I just acted like it hadn't happened.

I walked upstairs and into Charlotte's room, hoping to see her asleep. But her bed was made and I realized she was at school. _Dang, _I thought to myself. I walked next door to Piper's room and it was empty. Everyone was gone. Crap, when my father realizes it, he'll force me to help him with his necromancy, and I had been doing such a good job of avoiding this subject.

_Maybe this would be a good time to leave the house..._I thought, but there was more than one problem with that:

1. The town has changed since 1920 and I won't know where anything is.

2. My father will notice I'm gone.

3. How do I leave?

Was I supposed to just walk out the front door, or was it more complicated than that? _Well If you tried to walk out the door, you'd know now, wouldn't you? _I thought. Well, I'll just have to find my own way for now. I walked to the front door and grabbed the door knob. As I started to turn it, I heard my father calling my name.

"Jonah, where are you? Jonah!" he yelled. I needed to leave quickly. _Wait a second; I'm a ghost for crying out loud! So why am I trying to open the door?_ I let go of the door knob and walked through the door and I was shocked at all that I had missed in the time I had been dead.

I saw people wearing weird glasses with lines covering their eyes and people were wearing colored bands in odd shapes and were showing them off to one another. I had seen Charlotte wear them, but never really caught their name. The car style had changed immensely and they looked a lot more stylish. And there was dew on the grass.

It had been a while since I had seen dew in the morning and I didn't hesitate to try and touch it. I crouched down and reached out to touch the grass, and when I did, my hand passed right through it. _Shoot,_ I thought, but I looked at my hand again and realized I was in my burned stage_._

_I should probably try to find Charlotte, _I thought. I saw a car coming down the road with an old man trying to talk on a cell phone and drive at the same time. I concentrated and next thing I knew I was in the car with the old man, and I sat there listening to his conversation.

"No! I told you the cake had to be done today…! I don't care if it's not done yet… It better be done when I get there!" he screamed and then he hung up. _Wow someone needs a nap, _I thought.

It took about 15 minutes for me to spot Goatswood High School and when I did, I saw Charlotte walking with some other girls to their next class. I concentrated and I was next to Charlotte, but she didn't seem to notice. I reached over and slowly unzipped her backpack and let the books fall out. She muttered an unrepeatable word and she turned around with an annoyed look and started picking them up as the bell rang. Everyone had gone to class, leaving her and me the only ones in the hallway.

I crouched down and put my hand on hers and when she looked up, I kissed her. She backed away after a couple seconds and her expression was confused, happy, and shocked all at the same time.

"Jonah? How did you-, when did you-, what?" she said, baffled. I tried to reply, but all that came out was that stupid gargling noise. She got her notebook and a pencil and handed it to me and I started to write:

_Charlotte! You have no idea how happy I am to be out of that house, but I guess when I do leave, I become burnt again... But I'm here and believe me I look and feel a lot better than before (and it's not just because you're my charge). Are you OK? You looked a little shocked to see me._

She read and looked at me and said, "I'm thrilled your here, but you caught me off guard there, and I have to get to class. But, I have lunch next so we can talk then, but you can come to class with me for now." I looked at her and nodded. She walked through the class door and a bald man with a mustache looked at her sternly. She explained to him how her backpack had fallen open and that's why she was late. He just looked at her and went on teaching.

I looked at his desk and on a little plate read "Mr. Kelley" and I figured that was his name. Charlotte went to an empty desk and sat down. Luckily, there was another empty desk behind her. She passed back a folded piece of paper to me and it read:

_That's Mr. Kelley, my math teacher. He's really strict, but you learn to love the guy._

I smiled and I nodded, letting her go back to learning about equations and what x equals and all that stuff. A short hour passed and the bell rang. Charlotte got her books together and grabbed my hand and we walked to lunch together. I bet it looked strange to everyone that she was walking with her hand held out to nothing.

The cafeteria was large and loud and covered with people. It had 4 wide screen TVs and the tables were in sections. On the wall, there was a painted mural of a knight slaying a dragon, probably because their mascot was a knight. She walked me to the lunch line were I saw pizza and hamburgers. Charlotte got a hamburger and proceeded to get more food from a side bar, and I was shocked at how I couldn't tell what some of it was.

We sat at an empty table and I caught my reflection in a pan the lunch lady was carrying. I was a little scarred, but almost normal and I figured I could talk .I looked at Charlotte and she had realized my sudden change, too.

"Well, I guess the more time with me, the better," she said smiling. "But I don't think I could do anymore being as you're away from the house."

"I guess so, but wait, where's your friend?" I asked.

"Oh, you see, after that night we haven't talked a lot. I guess she's still in shock or just scared of me," she explained with a sad expression on her face.

"Oh, I'm so sorry about my father. He has something coming to him, I can feel it," I said reassuringly. "But what about your other friends?" I asked.

"Well, most of them think I've been acting strange lately and they ignore me because they have 'reputations' to uphold," she said, putting air quotes after "reputations."

"That's mean. How you girls put up with all the drama?" I asked.

"Believe me, I'm just as clueless as you are," she replied laughing. Then, some guy walked by with some other guys behind him and stopped and looked at Charlotte.

"Talking to yourself? You're such a freak!" he said while the other guys laughed.

"Go jump off a short bridge with a long bungee cord!" Charlotte snapped. He chuckled and walked away and I was freaking mad!

~*X*~

What a bunch of bullies!

"Well, Jonah, that was exhibit A of what I have to put up with," I said. But when I turned around, Jonah was gone. I looked around and then I saw him a couple feet in front of the boy who had made fun of me. Just as the boy had walked past Jonah, Jonah put his foot out and the boy came tumbling down onto a table, and when he got up his nose was bleeding and his ankle was swollen were Jonah had tripped him.

I looked at the boy with a startled, yet satisfied, look. He glared at me, got up quickly, and hopped to the nurse with two teachers. I turned back around and Jonah was sitting next to me with a pleased grin on his face.

"Nice job, but what did you say to him that made him so scared of me?" I asked.

"Oh, I just happened to mention that if he ever messed with you again, all Hades would let loose on him," he replied with a smile of satisfaction on his face. I smiled and kissed him on the cheek, which seemed to make his smile even bigger.

After, my last two classes and Athletic P.E., we headed home on the bus and my day had almost instantly become brighter. We got home and Andrew tried to jump off the school bus steps instead of walking down them, which led to me putting a band aid and some peroxide on his cut knee. When I went up to my room I felt something negative in the air as soon as I walked in, and Jonah, who was back to normal, did too. I could tell by his facial expression.

"Crap! You dad's pissed! I can tell," I said.

"When is he not pissed?" Jonah replied. We sat there talking about my classes and he was asking me questions about school. We stopped talking and just sat there staring at each other, then he put his hand on my cheek and guided me to his lips. God, when I kissed him, I felt fireworks go off in my head. I would stay there with him forever if I could. I put my hand on his chest and leaned closer to him and started unbuttoning his shirt. Then, I heard my door creak open. We stopped kissing and I looked over at my door, and I saw Andrew standing there being still and unnaturally quiet.

"Andrew?" I asked. Something wasn't right. He was pale and his eyes glared at me with a possessed stare and his mouth was a straight line. I got up quickly and walked over to him; I crouched down to his height and grabbed his shoulders. I started shaking him.

"Andy? Andy!" I said, but he stood still and stared at me with a haunted look.

Jonah got up and moved to Andy and waved his hand over him. When he did a blue necromancy experiment hovered behind Andrew and it vanished. Andrew's eyes fluttered and he looked around the room with a confused look on his face.

"What happened, Charlotte?" he asked, startled.

"Andy you were... sleepwalking," I said, feeling my pupils get larger.

"I don't remember falling asleep." he said.

"...Well ya did," I said, trying to sound believable.

"OK if you say so," he shrugged and went to his room. I looked at Jonah with a terrified look.

"They can _possess _people!" I asked in a loud/scared tone.

"Yes, I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but they really don't possess often," he explained, trying to calm me down.

"But that's my little brother! What if it's worse next time?" I asked in a worried tone.

"I'll take care of it," he said reassuringly. He kissed my forehead and disappeared and I was hoping he was going to beat the evil out of his dad.

~*X*~

I walked through the autopsy room door and stared angrily at my father, who was staring angrily back at me.

"I saw everything and you are in so much trouble! You are supposed to be getting rid of them, _NOT_ falling in love with the eldest daughter!" he yelled and slapped me across the face. I felt my cheek burn and I balled my fists angrily. I looked at my father and the next thing I knew my right fist had made contact with his face. He stumbled backwards and held his eye in shock. I felt stronger (and angrier) than ever before.

"LEAVE THEM ALONE!" I yelled and pushed him backwards. He let go of his eye and I saw that I had made a large purple welt on it. He ran at me and I concentrated and I was on the other side of the room. He had hit his head on the door in result of trying to attack me. He turned around and stared at me, shocked at my newly found strength. I guess I have Charlotte to thank for that. I concentrated and I was behind him. I kicked the back of his head and he fell on the floor unconscious. That had been two people in one day I hurt and it was all for good reason, and I was proud. I looked at my dad and smiled at my courage to stand up to him. But one thing I was sure of, I didn't want to be there when he woke up.

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**A/N: **The first person to get the name of the bracelets gets a cookie!


	13. Sometimes

**A/N:** Whoo! Second update in one day! The song "Sometimes" belongs to Skillet and whatnot... This is in Ramsey's POV! Props to V for the poem! Now, on with the show!

_BEAT RAMSEY WITH A FRYING PAN IF YA LURVE JONAH! _*WAH-POW!* tee-hee ;D

P.S. I gave Jonah a middle name. Don't hate, appreciate.

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**13**

**Sometimes**

**Everyone always has a reason for everything,  
It seems like forever  
****When you wait for those reasons  
****It's a rare opportunity  
****To actually hear it from the person,  
****Who keeps you waiting.  
****So listen and learn  
****From those reasons  
**_Keep Waiting,_ Victoria Burgess

I opened my eyes to a spinning room. I picked myself off the floor, trying to recollect what had happened previously. I picked my spectacles off the cold floor and placed them back onto the bridge of my nose. It was a wonder they had not broken. Suddenly, my left eye began to pulsate. I placed my forefinger onto the welt, and my memory came back to me in a rush. Jonah, my own son, had punched the daylights out of me. I became furious with him as I ascended the basement stairs. I made my way to the eldest child's room and slammed the door open. I couldn't believe the blasphemy playing before my eyes.

It was dark outside, so there was a desk light on. In the dim light, I saw Jonah and the girl beneath her covers, kissing. _Passionately_.

"JONAH NATHANIEL AICKMAN! WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT THIS?" I screamed, slamming them both against a wall telepathically. When Jonah hit the wall, I discovered that his suspenders were at his sides and his shirt had been unbuttoned. I bet that _girl _did that to him.

"FATHER!" he screamed. "What are you doing in here?"

"Looking for you! And now that I've found you, I'm going to beat you so hard, you'll come back to life and die again ten times over!" I yelled, smacking him across the face.

"Leave him alone!" the girl shouted from the opposite side of the room.

"And _you_," I hissed, turning to face her. I walked over to her and stared her down. "You've corrupted my son's mind, filling it with your lustful Twenty-First Century ideas! I ought to _kill you_ for messing with him! As a matter of fact, I think I will," I threatened. I put a telepathic grip around her throat and squeezed it.

"STOP! _You're _the one with the corrupted mind!" Jonah yelled from across the room. I lost concentration on the girl and turned in his direction.

"What did you say?" I yelled. He looked me square in the eye.

"You're the one with the corrupted mind! You never let me leave the house after Mother died! I never had any friends! Do you know how depressed I was at age four? I attempted _suicide _at age six! You did that to me! You! Plus, you were so obsessed with your stupid necromancy crap that you forgot to _feed me!_ What kind of a father forgets to feed his own son?" He yelled. "You always lied to me! You beat me senseless! You never cared for me! Mother and Charlotte are the only people who have ever given a rat's backside about me! All the other people that came to the séances thought I was a freak! And _you_ made my life that way!" he finished his rant. He had tears streaming down both cheeks.

_Sometimes, when I lie, I know you're onto me_

"Lies! LIES!" I yelled. "My mind is perfectly stable! And I fed you every night! I didn't want you to go outside because I didn't want you to die like your mother! I don't beat you, I discipline you!" I shot back.

_Sometimes, I don't mind how hateful that I can be_

"Discipline is a simple spanking or grounding and telling the child what he did wrong. You don't do that. You muster up all your hate and pain and lash it out on me!" Jonah yelled. He was right. But I was not going to tell him that.

_Sometimes, I don't try to make you happy_

"And I was never happy when I was alive. I had no one to talk to. It's a wonder I didn't go stark-raving mad," he muttered.

"I was never happy, either!" I exclaimed.

"Well, at least you had something to do! I was stuck up in my room reciting that stupid _Two Dead Boys_ poem Mother told me while you worked on those dead bodies. That poem was the only thing that kept me alive," he said, sobbing.

_I don't know why I do the things I do to you, but…_

"Why did you make my life a living Hell?" he asked, looking back up at me. I had no answer. I really didn't know why I treated him like that.

_Sometimes, I don't wanna be better_

"Because _my _life was a living Hell. When your mother died, my whole life came crashing down," I confessed.

_Sometimes, I can't be put back together_

"I was so depressed and confused that I took it all out on you. It's like I'm a puzzle and I'm forever missing a piece, and that piece is your mother," I told him sternly. "But that doesn't change the way I feel now."

_Sometimes, I find it hard to believe there's someone else who could be just as messed up as me_

I looked at him. I thought of all the séances he performed. Could he really be just as crazy as I am? A medium son and a necromancer father. Sounds like it.

_Sometimes, don't deny, that everything is wrong_

"But why did you take it out on _me_? Why not on the bodies? Why did you start the whole necromancy thing in the first place?" he asked me.

"To get my mind off your mother. But it never worked."

_Sometimes, I'd rather die than to admit it's my fault_

"It's still your fault that I lived a depressed life!" Jonah yelled. This made me furious. How dare he talk to me in that tone? But, yet again, he was correct.

_Sometimes, when you cry, I just don't care at all_

He started to cry again. Why did God curse me with such a sensitive son? I wanted to smack him again and make him shut up. No son of mine is going to turn soft and feminine.

_I want someone to hurt like the way I hurt_

"Now you know how I felt!" I yelled in his face. He flinched and turned his head.

_It's sick, but it makes me feel better_

His pain made me feel complete for some reason. I guess having someone feel my pain gives me satisfaction. I smacked his face, and he looked back up at me.

_Sometimes, I can't hide the demons that I face_

I repeatedly smacked him. The girl was yelling at me to stop, but I ignored her. His pain was giving me joy, and I couldn't stop.

_Sometimes, don't deny, I'm sometimes sinner, sometimes saint_

As I was hitting him, I thought back to when we were alive. I remember telling him that if he messed up the séance, I would beat the living snot out of him in the meanest, angriest tone I had ever used. Then I opened the door to that night's grieving family, bearing a huge smile and greeting them kindly. I was seriously stark-raving mad.

_Sometimes, I don't wanna be better (Everything is gone forever)_

I started to beat on his chest and arms. The girl was now screaming at me to leave him alone. I lost control and ran at her.

_Sometimes, I can't be put back together (Sometimes, it's gone forever)_

I smacked her face as hard as I could. She screamed and head butted me in the forehead. I stumbled backwards, caught my balance, and charged at her once more. I reared my fist into the air, preparing to throw a punch at her face, when I was tackled.

_Sometimes, I find it hard to believe there's someone else who could be just as messed up as me_

Somehow, Jonah had broken away from my telepathic hold and tackled me, throwing me to the ground. He punched my face, knocking my spectacles off my nose once again. I gained control and pinned him down. I began smacking and hitting him. His nose began bleeding, and his right eye became swollen. Just as I was about to throw another punch at him, I was hit in the back of the head with something metal, and everything went black.

~*X*~

I stood there with a frying pan gripped tightly in my hands. I was panting hard. I had knocked Ramsey, the Face of Evil, out with a _frying pan_. It took my brain a while to comprehend what all had happened, but when I realized what I had done, I felt relieved. I helped Jonah push Ramsey's heavy, unconscious body off of him and dragged him down to the basement. We threw him into the morgue and I locked the door with the skeleton key that I had happened to grab before the dragging started. Before I closed the morgue door, I hit Ramsey's head with the pan again to make sure he wouldn't wake up for a while.

"Thank you so much for saving my sorry butt," Jonah exclaimed, kissing me.

"You're welcome," I muttered against his lips. It was a wonder no one else heard all that noise. I knew my mom was a heavy sleeper, but _dang!_ We walked back up to my room and fell asleep. The next morning, Jonah was completely healed, but I was still pretty sore. Jonah followed me to school again, in fear of facing his father again, if he ever woke up. We had no clue of what to do the next time he came up. We both knew that what happened the night before was only a fraction of the power he had. We also knew that no matter what happened we would face it head-on together.


	14. The Halloween Spirits

**A/N: **Sorry this chapter is kinda late XD Happy (belated) Halloween!

_TELL ME WHAT YOU WERE THIS YEAR FOR HALLOWEEN IF YA LURVE JONAH! _I was a mime:)

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**14**

**The Halloween Spirit(s)**

**The wind blows,  
****Your heart races,  
****The next scare is just around the corner,  
****There's laughter,  
****And there's screams,  
****The excitement is unexplainable,  
****And suddenly it dies  
****Because Halloween is over  
**_Halloween,_ Victoria Burgess

Hitting Ramsey upside the head with a frying pan had made my day yesterday and now that Halloween, my favorite holiday of all time, was today I felt like screaming. It always seemed to me that Halloween never came quick enough, plus it was the only night of the year when your parents let you dress up like a weirdo and go to strangers' houses in the middle of the night to get candy.

Andrew had woken me up really early this morning in attempts to go shopping for costumes, but Mom wasn't home and I didn't have a license so we had to put that off. He ran around all day trying to find the jack-o-lanterns and decorations, which I really didn't want to put up being as we already lived in a haunted house. Now he started to pick up the phone and call Mom at work.

"Hey, Mommy! I wanted to know if you'll be back in time to go trick-or-treating?" he asked with his face glowing with excitement. There was a pause and his smile had started to turn into a tiny frown and then he answered, "Well, what about the candy?" he asked, his lip was quivering. _Here we go, _I thought. There was another pause and he handed the phone to me. "Mom wants to talk to you." he said with disappointment coating his voice. I grabbed the phone and held it to my ear.

"Hey Mom, what up?" I asked.

"Hun, look, I'm not going to be home in time for trick-or-treating, so do you think you could take Andy?" she asked. I tried not to start crying myself. Mom had never missed trick-or-treating with me and Andrew, and she loved Halloween just as much as I did.

"Sure, but what about costumes?" I asked, covering the sadness in my voice.

"Well, I was going to surprise you guys with the costumes, but I guess that plan is down the toilet now. They're in my room, in my closet under the suitcases," she answered. I grinned widely and wondered anxiously about what she had picked out for me.

"OK, I'll get them and I'll try to get Andy to calm down. Thanks Mom, I'll miss you not being with us," I said, trying to stop my eyes from watering.

"I'll miss you too, Char. Oh, and remember to take a picture and we'll send it to Dad in the mail," she said, and I could tell by the tone in her voice she was ready to cry, too.

"Bye Mom, love you," I said quickly and hung up the phone. I didn't mean to be rude; I just needed time to dry my eyes.

I headed upstairs, towards Mom's room, and opened her door. I picked up the big brown suitcases and there they were. I looked at Andy's costume and it was a yellow X-Men Wolverine costume, Piper's costume was a purple butterfly with metallic blue wings, and mine was an Alice in Wonderland blue dress with black and white striped stockings. My eyes got huge and I rushed to Andy's room, hid the costumes behind me, and burst the door open. I looked at him and tears were gleaming off his red cheeks.

"What?" he said in a tone that would've made me cry if I hadn't had been so excited.

"First off, I'm taking you trick-or-treating," I said this and I saw a smile sweep across his face. "And second, we've got costumes!" Once I had said that he jumped off the bed, were he had been crying into his pillow, and looked at me with gleaming eyes. I pulled his costume out from behind my back and he yelled with joy. He grabbed the costume from my hands and motioned me out the door. I sneaked into Piper's room and picked her up out of her playpen where she had been gnawing on a teddy bear's ear.

"Hey baby girl!" I said in a mushy tone. "Look-y what I got for ya!" I held the costume out with my other hand and she giggled in the most adorable way. I laid her down on her diaper changing station and changed her into her costume. She looked so precious in her costume; her little antennae had little hearts dangling down them, the blue wings glimmered off the ceiling when the sun hit them, and the purple was my favorite thing about the whole costume (since it's my favorite color).

I heard the door open and standing there was Jonah, and he looked normal. No cuts, no bruises, no blood. _Thank God,_ I thought. He looked at me and smiled and then he saw Piper and he smiled wider.

"She looks adorable!" he said and grabbed her little hand. She smiled and giggled like crazy and tightened her hand around his finger. I don't know if she saw him, but if she did then she really liked Jonah.

"Yeah, I think she likes you," I said and he looked at me.

"Maybe, if she does see me it's because she's a medium too," he said with honesty in his voice.

"I would do anything for her _not _to be one. I don't want her going through what I have to," I said, looking at Piper with a serious face.

"I know it's tough being a medium, but it does have advantages at times," he replied, stroking the back of Piper's tiny hand with his thumb.

"I know; if I wasn't a medium, I wouldn't have met you," I said lacing my fingers through his, "but it's different with her. She's so innocent and to see her having to deal with all this...I don't know. It would be hard for me to see," I answered. I put Piper down in her playpen as she tried to grab the hearts dangling from her antennae. Jonah walked with me to my room. He saw the costume in my hand and looked down at it.

"_Alice in Wonderland_, eh? I remember reading that when I was little. 'If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?' that's what Alice says," he said with a pleased look.

"Yeah, well my reality is already nonsense," I said walking in my room. "Oh, and give me a minute to change," I said, shutting the door. I got the costume out of its package and started dressing myself. The blue dress went to my mid-thigh and the apron was white with a little frill at the bottom. I put on the stockings and wore my black knee-high Converse over them. I took a black headband and put it in my hair after putting on black eyeliner and shiny silver eye shadow. I took a red marker and drew a spade on one cheek and a black club on the other.

"You can come in now, Jonah." I said. He walked through the door and looked and my outfit for a while.

"You look great." he said, not taking his eyes off of me.

"Thanks," I said, noticing he still was looking me up and down. "Ok, down boy," I said, grabbing his hand and lacing my fingers through his.

"Oh, I'm sorry it's just...you look really good," he said, blushing. I felt a sudden throbbing in my head and I grabbed my forehead. "Charlotte, you OK?" Jonah asked

"Yeah, I'm fine, headache is all," I explained, looking at him. Suddenly, Andrew came bursting into my room acting all tough and growling in his Wolverine costume. "Well, don't you look tough," I said, eyeing his costume, and it did look great.

"What's it to 'ya, bub?" he asked in a deep voice and I laughed at his Wolverine imitation.

"Come on downstairs; we need to get a picture for Dad," I told Andy and he walked down the hallway, punching invisible bad guys and cutting them to pieces. I got Piper, who couldn't stop giggling and reaching for Jonah. _If this kid is a medium she seems to enjoy it, _I thought, trying to push those thoughts aside.

I set up the camera stand and put the camera timer on and got in the picture. Andrew posed with his claws out while Piper and I smiled and Jonah was next to us. I looked at the picture and hooked it up to the laptop and printed it out. I took a Sharpie and wrote on the back, "Halloween 2010 Charlotte: Alice in Wonderland, Andrew: Wolverine, Piper: Butterfly" and suddenly I noticed something on the picture. Right were Jonah was standing was a faint image of his face next to Piper and me.

I looked at Jonah and he looked at the picture with a smile at seeing his face in the picture. I smiled back and put the picture back on the counter, grabbed the jack-o-lantern candy buckets off the counter, and we all walked out the door. We couldn't go far being as I didn't have a license or a car, so we stayed in Goatswood instead of going to the rich neighborhoods. We stopped at a couple of houses and my headaches were getting worse. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't normal headaches. We got to one of the older houses and I saw the weirdest things.

I looked in the window of the house and there was a transparent twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl with long blonde hair. She was wearing clothes from the 1800s, and on her neck was a long hanging noose. She saw me and turned away. I looked at Jonah and he said, "I saw her too."

"Great, more ghosts," I said with sarcasm in my voice.

"Maybe she's just stuck and knew you were a medium," he replied.

"I hope so," I muttered, trying not to get worried. But something wasn't right. Every single one of the older houses we went to, I saw ghosts. I saw an old lady with weird looking bumps on her skin, two little boys with slit throats, and a man who was middle aged with a bullet hole under his heart. I felt like I was feeling all their pain at once, and there were plenty more ghosts after that neighborhood, too.

Every time I saw a ghost, Piper started to get fidgety and that worried me. I looked at Jonah and whispered, "I see dead people." He laughed and held me close to him, but still my headaches were getting worse. I got to one house and a little girl with pig tail braids had burn marks all over her and she was looking at me with a sad look and mouthed the words "Help me" and disappeared. I almost had a total break-down after that and I told Andy we needed to go home. He didn't argue; it was late and I knew those two were tired.

When we got home I gave Piper a bath and put her to bed and Andrew just threw his costume on the floor and jumped on his bed. I hated this Halloween and Jonah knew it just by seeing my expression. I got a shower and got in my pajamas. I went downstairs and spilled all my candy out on the kitchen table and ate some. Mom walked in at about 9:35 and joined me in my midnight snacking. We didn't talk much, but she saw the picture I printed out and smiled, but eyed it for a moment.

"Who's this?" she said while eating a Kit Kat bar. _My ghost boyfriend. Isn't he cute_? I thought.

"Oh, it's nothing, the camera messed up," I said, looking down trying in attempts to cover my dilating pupils.

"Hmm," she muttered and she started to get up. "Well, I'm going to bed. I'm off work tomorrow," she said with a smile.

"OK, good night, Mom," I replied with a grin, and as soon as she got upstairs Jonah came in and picked up a candy bar. "Can ghosts eat?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Let's find out," he replied, unwrapping the chocolate Snickers bar. He took a quick bite and his eyes gleamed. "This is good!" he said with enthusiasm and he took another bite. I laughed and picked up a Reese's Cup and asked Jonah, "What the freak was going on with me tonight?" He looked at me and swallowed the candy bar.

"Well, they may have just been wanting help and they felt your presence just like you felt theirs," he answered.

"Well, it's scaring me. I've never seen so many ghosts _ever_ in my life!" I said, trying to hide my worry.

"It's OK Charlotte, it's not that bad unless you die because of it," he said and I grinned a little bit. Well, he may have convinced me for now, but I knew something else was going on.


	15. The Candy Addict

**A/N: **Hey, guys! This chapter is kinda... weird. LOL. Props to V for the ah-mazing poem!

_TELL ME YOUR FAVORITE CANDY IF YOU LOVE JONAH! _I love Reece's Cups:D

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**15**

**The Candy Addict**

**Pain and suffering will have its loss,  
****When justice and power strike through their prison,  
****You have a sudden power no one can explain,  
****So if you suffer,  
****Your day of happiness will come  
**_Justice Comes,_ Victoria Burgess

Jonah ate a Reece's Cup before we went to bed. He kissed me good-night and we fell asleep. I dreamed that I was in Wonderland and Jonah was the Mad Hatter. Then, I found myself on a battlefield facing a jabberwocky with the face of Ramsey, and instead of a sword, I had a gigantic black frying pan gripped tightly in my hands. I jolted upright in bed right before I hit the jabber-Ramsey upside the head with the pan. That candy was really getting to me.

"What's wrong?" Jonah said groggily, raising his head and looking side to side with closed eyes.

"N-nothin', I had a really, really weird dream that involved Wonderland, you as the Mad Hatter, and a jabber-Ramsey being hit upside the head with a frying pan," I explained.

"That's… nice, I guess," he muttered, dropping his head onto the pillow. "Go back to sleep," he whispered. Five seconds later, he was snoring softly. I rolled my eyes at him and sank back under the warm covers. I snuggled up against his chest and before I knew it, I was fast asleep again. I woke up again the next morning to find Jonah stuffing his face with Twizzlers, Milky Ways, Skittles, M&Ms, and basically any other candy you could think of.

"Jonah! What are you doing? You're gonna get sick!" I hissed at him, snatching away the Crunch bar he was currently eating.

"HEY!" he whined childishly. I smirked at him and took a bite out of the candy bar. "That's not fair! I was a deprived child, you know!" he protested.

"You might've been deprived, but I think you just ate a whole lifetime of candy in one sitting," I laughed. He frowned, squinting his eyes at me crossly. "Now get out; you know the drill," I told him.

"Fine, but I'm taking the candy with me!" he said, snatching up my candy bag and running out the door. I grunted and closed the door behind him muttering, "Fine, but I'm gonna laugh when you puke your guts up."

After I took a shower and brushed my teeth, I put on a black long-sleeved shirt, jeans, black hi-top Converses, and my favorite purple pullover hoodie. When I was putting my makeup on, Jonah walked into my room and groaned.

"What's wrong?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"Charlotte, I don't feel too good," he muttered. He groaned again and clutched his stomach.

"Hmm… I wonder _why_?" I said sarcastically, glaring at him. He sneered back and sat down on the bed. Suddenly, he jumped up and ran through the closed door. I sighed and followed him. He ran into the bathroom, opened the toilet lid, and emptied out the contents of his stomach. I closed the door and sat down on the floor beside him, patting his back and stroking his hair.

"I told you not to eat all that candy," I whispered, running my hand up and down the length of his arched back. He dry heaved a couple of times, and then looked up at me.

"I'm s-sorry for not listening. I've never had candy before, and I guess it got the better of me," he whispered weakly, wiping his mouth off.

"It's okay, I understand. Just don't go crazy next time," I told him, kissing his cheek. He flushed the toilet and rinsed his mouth out with mouthwash (since he didn't have a toothbrush). We walked back to my room and I finished putting my makeup on. I got my backpack and purse, grabbed an apple, and waited for the bus outside in the cold with Andy and Jonah. Jonah had started making it a habit of going to school with me. Jenny never sat with me on the bus anymore, so Jonah took her place.

I finished the apple and threw the core into the dumpster can at the end of the driveway. The bus pulled up and we all clambered on, making sure that Jonah got on before I did so he wouldn't be left behind. When we sat down in the seat, he wrapped his right arm around my back and stuffed his hand into the front pocket of my hoodie. I stuck both hands into the pocket and put my right hand over his and laced my fingers with his with my left hand. I wanted to kiss him so much, but it would look weird kissing the air.

We got off the bus and I walked him to my locker. I got my books for first and second period and then we walked to class. Jonah walked behind me in the same position as he was on the bus. We entered the classroom and I sat down in my assigned seat and he sat in the empty desk behind me. We learned about correct grammar and punctuation, since English is my first class. Class ended and we went to world history next. The day gradually moved on, and finally, school was out. We got off the bus and walked through the door.

"Momma, we're home!" Andrew yelled.

"Hey, kids! How was your day?" Mom asked us.

"Great! I made an A on my math test today!" Andrew beamed, pulling out the test from his backpack and showing it to Mom.

"That's great, sweetie! How was your day, Char?" she said, turning to me.

"You know, same ol', same ol'," I said, waving my hand around. "I've got history homework again," I said, irritated.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. Coach Burkes got you loaded down again?" she asked. I nodded my head.

"Well, I better go get on it," I told her, walking upstairs to my room. I set my stuff down and pulled my history book and binder out of my backpack. I grabbed a pen and started working on the stupid history homework. I finished all four sections of the chapter and walked back downstairs to watch TV. When I sat down, I realized that Jonah had been missing since I walked through the door. I searched the whole house, excluding the basement, and still couldn't find him. I opened the door to the basement and stared at the dark flight of stairs.

"Jonah? Jonah?" I whispered softly. No answer. I stepped onto a few stairs and called his name again. Still no reply. I made my way down the flight of stairs and walked into the dark room. I flipped the switch and saw something I had hoped I would never see again.

There, in the middle of the basement floor, was Jonah stuffing his face with candy again. When the lights came on, he looked at me with guilty blue eyes.

"Ch-Ch-Charlotte!" he cried out with a mouthful of chocolate. He quickly swallowed it. "What are you doing in here?"

"Well, you kinda went missing, so I was wondering where you were. Now, I found you. Question is _why_ are you eating candy again?" I demanded. I crossed my arms across my chest and glared at him.

"B-because it tastes good," he squeaked. He shrunk under my look of death. "I'm sorry! I couldn't help it! Please don't hurt me!" he cried, backing himself into the corner. He stared at me in complete terror.

"Jonah, I'm not your dad. I'm not gonna beat you because you ate some candy," I whispered, walking closer to him. He shrank smaller and smaller into a little curled up ball with each step I took. "Jonah, please don't do this. I'm not gonna hurt you," I pleaded. He curled up tighter.

"No, go away! I'm a bad, bad boy," he whimpered, tears rolling down his cheeks. I got down on my knees and crawled over to him. He flinched when I reached my hand towards him, but relaxed a bit when it touched his cheek. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, and he went completely limp. He tasted like chocolate and peanut butter. I pulled away and stared into his eyes. He was still scared.

"Jonah, I'm not going to hurt you. You need to believe me," I whispered, kissing him again. He began to kiss back, but then pulled away.

"What if Father is in here?" he whispered, so low that I barely heard him.

"He already knows about us," I told him. As soon as I said that, I heard someone clambering down the steps. I jumped off the floor and to my feet as Andrew entered the basement.

"Char, have you seen my candy bucket? It's not in my room," he said, sniffling a bit. He was on the verge of crying. I glared at Jonah again. He shrank again and pointed to the door of the morgue.

"Really?" I mouthed at him. He shrank down even more and winced. "Sorry," I mouthed, realizing what I had done. I opened the door to the morgue and found Andrew's orange jack-o-lantern candy bucket on the table in the middle of the room. I cautiously walked over to the table and picked the bucket up. I studied the table for a bit. It was metal with leather straps dangling from it. I picked up one of the straps, and the table moved with my actions.

"Cool, it moves! Can you spin me on it?" Andrew asked. I saw Jonah get up and stand behind Andrew. Jonah shrugged, not knowing whether or not I should spin Andrew.

"Um, sure, Andy," I said. He clambered onto the table and lay down. I grabbed a corner and began to spin him.

"Wee! This is fun!" he exclaimed, his voice sounding distorted from his movements. "Faster!" I pushed him faster. When his head passed my eyes, I saw something strange. It looked like a pile of sandbags. I spun Andrew faster to get a better look. The faster I spun him, the more the image changed. Suddenly, the sandbags were being lifted into empty wooden coffins that had been dug up. Whoever was putting the sandbags into the caskets closed the lids and pushed them back into the freshly dug holes. They picked up a shovel and began shoveling the dirt back onto the caskets. I heard Andrew screaming and my vision disappeared. I stopped the table.

"Charlotte! I didn't want you to go _that_ fast!" he yelled. I could tell he was dizzy. I helped him get off the table, and caught him when he lost is balance. I walked him over to the couch and sat beside him.

"I'm sorry, Andy. I didn't mean to make the table go that fast," I apologized. He said he forgave me and went back into the morgue to get his candy bucket. When he left, Jonah came and sat down beside me.

"Why'd you do that?" he asked.

"I… I saw something under the table. Every time the tabled passed by, an image came up, and the faster the table went, the more I saw the vision. Jonah, someone was stuffing sandbags in empty caskets," I told him.

"That's my father's doing. He dug up the bodies and replaced them with sandbags," he told me.

"God, that's just sick!" I exclaimed.

"I know, and he made me help him sometimes. It smelled _terrible_!" He gagged at his memories. "Oh, no, here comes the candy," he muttered and ran to the bathroom across the room.

"Are you okay?" I asked him when he was done vomiting. He flushed the toilet and weakly stood up.

"Y-yeah, just need to sit down," he muttered hoarsely. He looked terrible. His face was even paler than usual, and his eyes seemed like they were dimmer. I walked him over to the couch and took off my hoodie.

"Here, just put your arms through the sleeves," I said, handing the hoodie to him. He took it and put his arms through the sleeves. He was shaking violently. I kissed his forehead. It was hot to the touch.

"C'mon, I think you have a fever," I said, motioning him to get off the couch.

"Where do you think you're going with my son?" a gruff, angry voice asked. I turned around to face Ramsey.

"What do you want, Ramsey?" I asked, completely pissed off.

"For you to leave my son alone," he growled, putting me in his telepathic hold again. My head hit the ceiling, and I couldn't breathe. I shut my eyes tight, and suddenly I hit the floor. I winced at the pain, and then looked up at Ramsey. He looked confused, surprised, and mad at the same time.

"What?" I asked, getting up.

"How… how did you get down?" he asked.

"Wait, did you not let me go?" I asked, becoming just as surprised as he was.

"No. I had you in a tight grip when-GAHCK!" I cut him off. Somehow, he was floating in midair, choking. Then I realized that _I_ was doing that. I smiled evilly and concentrated. I looked at the wall, and then at lightning speed Ramsey followed, hitting his head hard. He groaned loudly. I looked up and he hit his head on the ceiling. I looked down and he hit his butt on the floor. This little number went on for a while. Jonah stood beside me, staring in awe. I smiled as wide as I could and threw the unconscious Ramsey into the morgue and locked the door, all with my mind.

"How… how… H-how…?" Jonah stammered.

"I dunno, but I like it!" I shrugged. He smiled at me. "Looks like I can defend myself. Well, for now anyway," I told him.

"Aw, I like tackling my father!" Jonah (fake) whined. I smiled and playfully nudged him.

"Are you feeling better?" I asked him.

"Yeah, now that I just saw my father get beat up by my girlfriend," he grinned. I laughed and we walked back upstairs. We watched TV for a while, and then went to bed.

"No more candy from now on," I told him.

"Cross my heart," he promised, passing his finger over his heart in an X. I kissed his cheek and rolled over. The sandbag vision kept playing over in my mind. What happened to the bodies after Ramsey was done with them? Would Jonah remember? I thought about asking him then and there, but decided against it. He needed his sleep. He was still a little warm, and I didn't want to disturb him. But, hopefully, he would know the answer.


	16. Home Sweet Home

**A/N:** Hey, sorry for the hold up. V wrote this awesome chapter/poem! Enjoy!

_TELL MEH YA FAVORITE MOVIE (BESIDES HiC) IF YA LOVE JONAH! _I've got too many to list... Some of them are Avatar, Edward Scissorhands, Pirates of the Carribbean (1-3), and so on and so forth...

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**16**

**Home Sweet Home**

**Why do bad things happen to good people?  
****Why is it that when things seem they can't get worse,  
****They suddenly do?  
****Patience,  
****Is the only answer  
****Your good day will come,  
****Just relax and let God take over,  
****Don't stress,  
****Because good things come to those who wait  
**_Those Who Wait, _**Victoria Burgess**

**I**t seemed like a normal day. The autumn leaves were falling, the house was silent, and no evil spirits were lurking around. I looked over at Jonah, who was asleep, and shook him to wake up. He grumbled and fidgeted and raised his head slightly. I leaned down and kissed his cheek and he grinned with a sleepy look on his face.

"Hey, sleepy head," I told him with a grin. He mumbled something that sounded like "Hey" and started to stretch. "Sorry to wake you, but I gotta change," I said, crawling out of bed. He nodded groggily and basically sleep walked out of the room. It seemed all that candy suddenly made him crash.

I grabbed some sweats out of my drawer and changed, brushed my teeth, pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and put on my makeup. I opened the door and Jonah walked in fluttering his eyelids trying to wake up. He looked me up and down and smiled.

"Didn't feel like getting dressed up, I see," he said with a joking tone in his voice.

"No, not really. Hey, it seems pretty...normal today," I told him and he looked outside.

"Yeah, it doesn't look so gloomy and depressing," he answered. I walked over and wrapped my arms around his waist and smiled up at him.

"Finally…" I said with a smirk. He put his hand on my cheek, leaned down, and kissed me. We stood there kissing for a while when I heard the door bell. I pulled away to go downstairs. Who could be here at 7:00 in the morning?

I walked down the stairs and opened the front door and standing there was a man with pale skin, green eyes, and a buzz-cut in an "I'm fighting in Iraq" outfit.

"Dad!" I screamed and pulled him into a hug so tight my arms started to hurt.

"Charlotte! Look at you! You've-" he started.

"Yeah I've grown and all that," I cut him off jokingly. He smiled, kissed my forehead, and walked into the house. I grabbed some of his bags and he eyed the house skeptically.

"Nice house. It's old... I can tell," he said, looking at some of the chipped paint on the walls.

"Yeah Mom needs to get some paint for it," I said closing the front door. He climbed up the stairs and peered into my room.

"I like it; the purple walls suit you," he said looking at me.

"You know it," I smiled. Jonah looked back at me. He stayed in my room the whole time with a confused look. I mouthed the words "my dad" and he smiled and walked up to my dad.

"Char, did it get cold in here?" he asked, looking around the room.

"Oh yeah, um, it's the air conditioner. It does that... a lot," I explained, looking down so he didn't see my pupils.

"I see. So do you like it?" he asked.

"What? My room? Or the house in general?" I asked.

"The house," he replied.

"Well... yes, but there are times when I miss the old house, but this one's great," I told him with total honesty in my voice.

"That's nice. I just don't want you in a place you're not comfortable in," he said, looking at me with a small grin. We walked down the hall into Andrew's room and Dad cracked open the door. I looked in and Andrew was asleep, but as soon as we walked in his eyes fluttered open.

"Oh, I'm having that 'Dad' dream again," he said and looked at Dad. Then, Dad walked over and kissed Andrew's cheek.

"No, it's really me, Andy," he said quietly. Andy sprung out of bed and yelled loudly with excitement and then, Mom came in holding Piper.

"What's going on in-," she paused when she saw Dad. "Sean! I thought you weren't coming home 'til next week!" she said, hugging Dad with her other arm.

"I was, but I had a little change of plans," he said and he took Piper from Mom's hands and held her up in the air. "Hey how you doin' girlie?" he said, grinning at Piper. In response she laughed and kicked her feet in the air. Mom kissed Dad and took us all downstairs. We sat in the kitchen talking about almost everything and Mom popped some Toaster Strudels in the toaster. Jonah was standing by the table awkwardly and I motioned him to sit down by me and sat down and gave me an "I shouldn't interrupt" face. My mom passed out the strudel and the icing and we all ate and talked some more. Andrew kept going on and on about this new TV show and then it came my turn to speak.

"So, Charlotte, how's school?" Dad asked.

"The usual: learning and cheering routine," I answered.

"What about painting? How's that been for you?" he asked, taking a bite out of his strudel.

"I lurve it, you know that!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, but your Mom's been telling me about some of those 'disturbing' paintings," he said, eyeing me. That's my dad for you; gets straight to the point and never looks back. I looked at Mom with a "WHYY!" look and she motioned her eyes to my Dad.

"It's nothing it's just... strange things happen and I draw them and sometimes they're just nightmares. I mean, isn't a therapeutic thing to draw what you're feeling?" I answered him. He stared at me thinking about what to say.

"Well, after breakfast I should look at them," he explained in a calm tone.

"Fine by me," I said and started eating and gave half of it to Jonah. Jonah looked at me and mouthed "He seems nice" and I smiled and mouthed "He is. It's just getting in trouble isn't fun." He smiled and ate and before I knew it breakfast was over.

Dad motioned me over and I opened the door to the basement. Jonah stayed upstairs trying to find more the Toaster Strudels. He walked downstairs and I prayed Ramsey wasn't there and if he touched my dad… _KAPOW_! He looked at my first sketch book and didn't even have an expression. He looked over the rest of the sketch books and held up one of the paintings.

"Who's he?" he asked. He was holding a picture of Jonah in the dark room I dreamt about.

"I don't know; he was just in my dream. I named him Jonah though. I thought it fit him, don't you think?" I asked.

"That's not the point, what was this dream?" he asked and I explained everything about it in exact detail, leaving out Ramsey of course. He stared at me and shook his head. "I think you're having these dreams because I'm not home," he said, looking at me. _No it's because this house is infested with evil spirits and I need the Ghostbusters quick!_ I thought.

"Yeah, you're probably right. I do miss you and you're home now and I like that," I told him.

"I like being home too and I hate it when I'm gone, but you guys are always on my mind." he said hugging me. I put my head on his chest and smelled his cologne. It seemed like I was a little 2 year old again. I let go of my Dad and smiled and we went back upstairs. He told Mom about the dream and thinking I was painting those supposedly "disturbing" images because I missed him. "But, I took care of it," he said like always. It's like my dad's catch phrase and it's all he ever says when he helps me, Andrew, or Piper.

Dad drove us to school and took Piper to daycare for Mom. He picked us all up from school, too. The night passed on and Dad, Jonah, and I watched _The Unborn_. Jonah cringed at all the deformed people and I held his hand whenever they came up. It felt kind of like my dad was chaperoning me and Jonah on a movie date. _Great, even when he can't see my boyfriend he's still protective, _I thought. We walked upstairs and my dad kissed my cheek.

"Home sweet home," he said and sighed. I smiled and went in my room as Jonah waited outside for me to change. He came in when I was done and I lay down on my bed.

"Your father seems like a good guy. I wish my father was more like him," he said, lying down next to me.

"Yeah I love him," I replied. He put his arm around me and I fell asleep knowing things were going to get better, and today proved it.


	17. Jealousy

**A/N:** Sorry for the late update! Busy, busy sched! Yesterday was meh birthday! I'm now officially fourteen! WHOO! Thanks to V for the poem! I don't own HiC or Percy Jackson & the Olympians (mentioned later in the chapter). ENJOY!

_TELL ME YOUR FAVORITE BOOK IF YA LOVE JONAH! _I'm currently reading _The Lost Hero_ by Rick Riordan, and it's pretty awesome so far:D

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**17**

**Jealousy  
****There will always be doubt,  
****There will always be jealousy,  
****Someone will need attention,  
****But you should never forget  
****Who you love and who you are,  
****Though it may be hard to understand,  
****But one day you will know  
**_Attention,_ Victoria Burgess

**I** pulled a sleeping Charlotte closer to my body. She let out a long breath through her nose and subconsciously clutched my shirt in her hands. For some reason, I just couldn't sleep that night. I wasn't sure if it was the horror film we watched, or if it was Charlotte's father coming home. I knew she loved her father and that he loved her, but there was just something about him that I didn't like.

I looked over at the clock. It read 11:11 P.M. I remembered my mother had told me that if you made a wish at 11:11, it would come true. Before I missed my chance, I wished that I would grow a fondness to Charlotte's father. When I opened my eyes, the clock read 11:12. Maybe I wished it in time.

I grew restless. I gently planted a kiss on Charlotte's forehead and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I silently placed my feet on the hard wood floor and stood up. I passed through the closed door and stepped into the hallway of the second floor. I slowly paced down the hall, dragging my fingertips against the walls as I walked. I walked through Piper's door. She was sleeping peacefully in her cradle. She had her backside sticking up in the air with her arms and legs tucked beneath her belly. Her tiny hands were tucked under her cheek. I lightly stroked her arced back, making her shiver slightly. She grunted and changed the position of her head so her other cheek was resting on her hands. I kissed the top of her head gingerly and left the room.

I walked past Andrew's and Charlotte's parent's rooms. When I walked past the parents' room, I heard soft whispering.

"What should we do about Char's paintin's?" her father asked. I pressed my ear to the door. It felt wrong listening in on their conversation, but they were talking about my beloved in there.

"I dunno, Sean. I'm kinda worried about her. No daughter of mine is going to go psychotic if I have anything to say about it," her mother replied.

"Laura, she's perfectly sane. She's probably just goin' through one of those hormonal phases," Sean said. _Ha, I wish._

"Should she see a psychiatrist? Something's just not right about those paintings. She drew a picture of some boy burning in a furnace! She even named him! I think it was James or John or something," Laura ranted. _My name is Jonah, thank you very much!_

"Sweetie, calm down. I think she drew all those things 'cause I was gone and the house burned down. I would draw those things if I was in her situation, too," Sean said, defending his daughter.

"Maybe you're right," Laura muttered.

"You know I'm right," Sean said. I didn't think he was right. No, quite the opposite. He was dead wrong. I heard them kiss and tell each other good night. I walked back to Charlotte's room and lay back down. I really didn't know how I felt about her father. He loves and cares enough for her to defend her. I wish my father loved me that much… Maybe that was why I didn't like Sean. He was the complete opposite of my father. It wasn't that I _didn't like_ him; it was because I was _jealous_ of him. I fell asleep pondering on the matter. Some time later, I felt Charlotte gently shaking me.

"Morning," Charlotte said, kissing me full on the lips.

"Morning," I muttered against her lips. I kissed her back and got out of bed.

"So, do like my dad? I'm sure he would love you," she told me. I felt a sharp pang in my stomach.

"Uh, y-yeah, I guess he's alright," I said after a pause. She smiled and then shooed me out of the room. I sat beside the door frame and waited for her to get ready. A few minutes passed and I saw Sean exit his bedroom. He walked to Andrew's room and woke him up, then walked to Charlotte's room. When he passed by me, he shivered and muttered something about getting the air conditioner fixed.

"Charlotte," he said, knocking on the door.

"Yeah, Dad?" Charlotte asked, opening the door. When I looked up, I found that she was only wearing the over-sized shirt that she had slept in the night before and her purple pinstriped underwear. I averted my eyes immediately, but the image was already etched into my memory.

"Just wanted to see if you were up yet," Sean said in his Southern accent.

"Well, now ya know. If you don't mind, I'd like to finish getting ready." Charlotte chuckled and closed the door.

"I'm makin' pancakes for breakfast," he informed. I heard a loud "YES!" come from behind the closed door. Sean made his way downstairs. Charlotte got dressed faster than usual. When she opened the door, she bent down and grabbed my wrist, pulling me up.

"C'mon! Dad's pancakes are the best!" she exclaimed, dragging me down the stairs. "And his sweet tea is the bomb dot com!"

"Sweet tea? What's that?" I asked her.

"It's tea with sugar and ice in it. It's really good, I promise!" she said, nearly bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

"Just where is your father from, exactly?" I asked her. He definitely _was not_ from Connecticut.

"Greenhill, Alabama. Don't bother looking it up 'cause it's not even on the map," she told me. I stared at her.

"That means it's so small, it doesn't count as its own city. It's part of the Florence city district, which is the city it's located the closest to. It's really just a small community where everybody knows everybody," she explained. I nodded my head. I saw Sean placing two homemade pancakes on a plate with a spatula.

"Come and get 'em while they're hot!" he yelled. I heard Andrew stomp down the stairs two at a time. He ran right through me trying to get to the kitchen. Charlotte rolled her eyes and led us to the table.

"Daddy, where's the syrup?" Andrew asked.

"I think in the cabinet," Sean replied. He helped Andrew take the plastic container of syrup out of the cupboard. Andrew poured it all over his pancakes and passed it to Charlotte. She poured it on one pancake and asked me if I wanted any. I nodded my head and she proceeded to pour the syrup on the other pancake.

"Hey, Dad, did you make any sweet tea?" she asked.

"Yep, made some last night," he said, pulling a pitcher of tea out of the fridge. He poured three glasses of the so-called "sweet tea" and placed one glass in front of Andrew, Charlotte, and himself. While Sean had his back turned and Andrew was shoving pancakes into his mouth, Charlotte motioned for me to drink her beverage. I grabbed the cold glass and took a small sip. It was amazing. It was really sweet, and it left a very pleasant aftertaste.

I took another small sip and passed the glass to her. She cut me a piece of the pancake and nonchalantly passed it to me. Let me tell you, her father was a very talented cook. She cut another piece and ate it herself. We alternated who-ate-when until the pancakes were gone. Laura walked into the kitchen with Piper and put her in her highchair.

"Mornin', sweetie," Sean said to Laura. She was dressed in her scrubs.

"Hey, baby. Thanks for the breakfast," she replied, kissing the top of his head. She fixed herself a couple of pancakes and sat down at the table, right next to me.

"Did it just get cold in here?" she asked. I rolled my eyes and got up. Charlotte finished the tea and got up as well.

"Thanks, Daddy," she said, planting a kiss on his clean-shaven cheek.

"You're welcome, baby," he replied. Charlotte put her dishes in the sink and went back to her room to get her stuff for school. She quickly brushed her teeth and sat on the couch.

"So, did you like the pancakes and tea?" she asked me.

"Yes, it was great!" I replied. "But… I heard them talking last night."

"Who? Mom and Dad?" she asked, turning around to face me.

"Yes; your mother asked if you should see a psychiatrist about the paintings in the basement," I told her.

"What did Dad say?" she asked with a worried tone.

"He said you only drew those pictures because he was gone and the house had burned down," I said. "What did he mean by 'the house burned down'?"

"Well, you see, before we moved here, Mom left a candle burning in our old house and it caught on fire. We lost everything," she said, looking down. I could see the sorrow in her eyes. I put the tips of my fingers beneath her chin and guided her head so she was facing me. I studied her eyes. They were red, and sadness and sorrow were mixing in with her held-back tears. I left her eyes and let my gaze travel to her trembling lips. With my fingertips, I guided her head closer to mine. She followed and closed her eyes, letting the tears fall down her cheeks. I gently kissed her lips as they trembled. She slowly stopped shaking and began to kiss back. Her tears started to fall on my cheeks. I pulled back slightly from her lips and kissed the rest of the stray tears. I cupped her face in my hands and kissed the corners of her eyes and lightly touched my lips to her closed eyelids. I gave her one last gentle peck and pulled away.

"Just be glad you survived," I whispered. She grabbed my hand.

"I am, I really am," she said in a shaky voice. "Thank you," she whispered, kissing my cheek. She wiped away the last of the tears and stood up. She grabbed her books and we walked to the door.

"Bye Momma and Daddy!" Andrew yelled as he opened the door. We all walked to the end of the driveway and waited for the bus. We climbed on and sat down for the thirty minute ride. I slid my hands into the front pocket of her hoodie and held her hands. She leaned back and settled herself against my chest. When the bus ride was over we filed our way out of the automobile and walked to Charlotte's locker. After Charlotte grabbed her books and closed her locker, a tall brunette teenager with tan skin and a green and black jersey walked up beside her.

"Hey, Charlotte," he said, smiling bashfully.

"Oh, hey, Chris, what's up?" she said with a half-hearted grin.

"N-nothing much. I was just wondering…" he trailed off. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"Wondering what?"

"I… I was wondering if you wanted to…"

"Yeah…?"

"…To go out with me. Y'know… as b-boyfriend and g-girlfriend." The boy, Chris, stuttered. His face had turned ghost-white and he looked like he was going to pass out. I felt like I was going to explode. How dare he ask to be her lover? I clenched my fists inside of Charlotte's pocket, and she quickly grabbed my wrists and kept an iron grip. I felt the blood rising to my face. I wanted to punch the living daylights out of him.

Elbowing me in the ribs, Charlotte replied, "I'm really sorry, Chris, but I'm not interested. You're a great guy and all, but you're not really my type."

"Oh, um, okay. S-sorry I asked," he said nervously and started to speed walk away.

"Chris, wait!" Chris turned around. His face was blood red.

"Why are you sorry?" Charlotte asked him, leaving me behind.

"I just shouldn't have asked. The guys said I was stupid for liking you, and now I think they're right. I'm sorry," he said while looking down at the floor in shame. What a kiss-up.

"Oh, well, in my opinion, the guys are the stupid ones. It's okay, I understand," she said reassuringly. "We can still be friends, right?" Chris's face lit up when she said that.

"Y-yeah, sure," he said with a weak smile. He leaned down and kissed her cheek.

"CHRIS!" she whispered loudly, glancing back at me. I balled my fists as tight as I could; making my knuckles go white. My sight went blurry with rage and anger as I stormed over to Chris. I started to swing my fists at him, but decided against it. He wasn't worth it.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry!" he said, his eyes growing to the size of dinner plates. He ran away in embarrassment.

"And good riddance," I muttered. Charlotte gave me the evil eye; hers was very similar to the one Father gave me.

"Jonah, he doesn't know about you! _No one_ does!" she whispered. "If people found out I was dating a ghost, they would lock me up in an insane asylum!" She grabbed my hand and pulled me to her first period classroom.

"I'm sorry! I… I just don't want to lose you," I told her with all sincerity deeply embedded in my voice. Her glare softened, but she still had anger in her eyes.

"Well, you don't have to be so jealous. I'll never love anyone but you, and you know that," she said, kissing me. Thank God there wasn't anyone to see us. The bell rang and everyone rushed to get to class. We sat down and waited for the teacher.

School ended and we walked to the bus. We sat down and waited for the other passengers to get on. The buses left the parking lot and we traveled our daily route back home. We got off the bus and walked into the house. Charlotte's parents were watching TV in the living room.

"Hey, kids!" Sean called.

"Hey, Mom and Dad!" Charlotte and Andrew said in unison. Charlotte and I made our way upstairs. She set her books down on the floor and plopped down on her bed. I lay down beside her.

"I love you," I whispered, kissing her tenderly.

"I love you, too," she replied, kissing back. We laid there for a while, kissing and telling each other sweet things. Somehow, I found myself hovering above her body, lowering my head down to kiss her. My hands were tangled in her soft auburn hair, and she began to unbutton my shirt. Right as she got to the last button, we heard a soft knock on her door. She sat up and straightened her hair as I slid off the bed completely. She picked her text book off the floor and opened it to a random page.

"Come in," she said. Sean opened the door and poked his head in.

"Hey, baby, what'cha doin' in here?" he asked as he entered the room.

"Homework," she simply replied.

"Oh, well I was just wondering if you wanted to go out and eat, y'know, just us two," he said. Charlotte looked up from her book.

"Really?" she asked, smiling.

"Yeah, like back when I was home all the time," he grinned, going into a mini-flashback.

"I'd love that! Where are we eating?"

"I was plannin' on you pickin' where we eat," he said.

"Is Peking good with you?"

"Whatever you like, baby."

"YES!"

"Hurry and get ready; I'm starving!"

"'Kay, Daddy," she said, pulling her shoes into her feet. Sean left the room as she re-applied her makeup. I stood awkwardly in the corner. _I'm never going to get her alone, now._

"Bye, Jonah," she whispered, kissing my lips and leaving the room (and me) behind. I sat down on her bed after she closed the door.

"Stupid Sean; taking away _my_ Charlotte! The only one who can see me! The only one who knows me! The only one who loves me…" I muttered aloud. What was I going to do while she was gone? I couldn't watch television without the rest of the family feeling my presence. I picked up a book off of her dresser. The title was called _Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Lightening Thief_. I turned the book over to read the summary of the story. It talked about a boy named Percy Jackson who experienced weird happenings. _Sounds a lot like me._ I flipped to the first page and began reading.

About an hour later, I heard Charlotte and Sean enter the house. I put down the book and stood up as Charlotte entered the room.

"How was it?" I asked her casually, trying to hide the jealousy in my voice.

"It was great! Chinese food is my favorite," she gushed. When she had her back turned, I rolled my eyes. "So, I see you've taken an interest in the Percy Jackson series," she said, picking the aqua-colored paperback off the bed.

"Kind of. Greek mythology is interesting, but a bit confusing," I answered. I sat down on the bed and Charlotte sat beside me.

"I've read all five books about three times each, at least. I can't wait to get the next book, _The Lost Hero_. It looks awesome," she said, placing the book back on the dresser. "Hey, Jonah?" she asked with her back turned in my direction.

"Yeah?"

"Are you jealous of my dad?" I stayed silent for a minute.

"Yes, very. I'm not sure why, though. I guess it's because he's a better father than mine was," I answered honestly.

"I think it's more than that. I think it's because he's been spending more time with me than you have. I… I can sense it. I don't know how, but I can sense it when you're jealous or sad or happy or any other emotion you can think of. Sometimes, you have this light around you that changes color with your mood, and ever since Dad came home, it's been light green, and the word _jealous_ runs through my mind. Whatever is going on with me, I just want you to know that you shouldn't be jealous of my dad. Yes, he loves me and wants to spend time with me and I have a special place for him in my heart, but you need to know that you will always have a special place, too. And, I will always make time just for you. There's no reason to be jealous of him." She sat back down and grasped my hands, intertwining her fingers with mine.

"I understand, but it's hard to like someone you have such hard feelings towards. I'll try my best, but I'm not promising anything." I guess that answer was good enough for her, because she leaned forward and kissed me.

"Thank you." She got up and walked to her dresser. She pulled out a blue t-shirt and black and white striped pajama bottoms. I got up and left the room while she changed. I tried not to think of what had happened when she changed this morning, but the image was stuck in my head. It was wrong of me to think of those things, but it felt so right. I pushed the thoughts away as she opened the door for me.

"Are you thinking dirty things, you naughty boy?" she asked me.

"Wha-what? No!" I retorted, my face burning.

"Then why is the word _lust_ running through my head? Why is your light red? Hmm?" she teased. I stayed silent. She could read auras, and she read them well. "It's okay, I have those thoughts, too."

"About me?"

"Sometimes…" she said vaguely, turning the light out. I didn't want to know what _she_ thought about. I've seen glimpses of how dirty-minded people are today, and I wasn't sure if she was one of those people. We climbed into bed and I kissed her good-night.

"Oh, those lights are called _auras_. They reflect how people feel and what their emotions are," I informed her.

"Thanks. _Lights_ sounded retarded. Now I know what they're called," she yawned. She closed her eyes and went to sleep. I watched her torso heave up and down as she breathed. I was jealous of her, too. She could breathe, she could live, and she could leave this stupid house without an apparatus. She also had a family who loved her. _Lucky, lucky, lucky._


	18. Little Brothers

**A/N: **WHOO! CHP. 18! Haha, I'm sorry, I'm kind of hyper right now. :D Props to V for the chp/poem:) Now, on with the show!

_SCREAM AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS IF YOU FREAKIN' LOVE JONAH!_ AHHHHHHH!:D

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**18**

**Little Brothers**

**If you've ever loved someone,  
****You know pain,  
****Someone you love is tormented,  
****And that hurts you as well,  
****Don't be afraid to stand up and say something,  
****Protect the ones you love,  
****And keep them close to your heart.  
**_Strength, _Victoria Burgess

**A**fter hearing about my parents little talk about me, I'm starting to think my mom thinks I belong in a straight jacket. I rolled out of bed and Jonah was already gone, _Where is he? _I thought. I put on a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and some skinny jeans, brushed my teeth and hair, put on my makeup, and I decided to straighten my hair. I let the hair straightener sit for a couple minutes and touched it and burned my finger. I pulled my finger away and started straightening my hair. I heard a knock at my door and Jonah walked in.

"Hey, sorry I wasn't here I was eaves dropping...again," he explained.

"It's okay, but you better stop or it's going to become a habit. One time, when I was six, my parents found out I was eaves dropping and they were talking and said I was adopted. I didn't go over well with me," I told him.

"Yeah, well, I doubt they'll ever find out that a ghost is listening in on their conversations," he replied with a smile. I put down my straightener and Jonah touched it, but didn't pull back and he sat and stared with his hand still on the straightener. "I can't feel anything," he said, pulling his finger back slowly. I took his hand and held it.

"I would think after all the pain you went through when you were alive, you wouldn't miss pain," I told him.

"I miss it though, not the pain, but the fact I could feel," he said solemnly.

"Well, can you feel this?" I asked slyly and I slowly put my lips to his. He smiled and nodded slightly. I unplugged the straightener and went downstairs with Jonah. I walked into the kitchen and Mom was looking in the fridge. There was a dark purple aura around her and the word _worried_ came across my mind.

"Why are you worried?" I asked her, trying not to sound suspicious.

"It's just that-," she cut herself off and looked at me. "How did you know I was worried?" she asked and started looking me up and down.

"Oh... I guessed, since you had this weird look on your face…" I lied.

"But I had my head in the fridge," she said and I heard the bus honk outside.

"Well, gotta go!" I said quickly, grabbed my books, and ran outside. I saw Dad raking the autumn leaves and he waved me goodbye. I waved and looked back at Jonah and he was eyeing my dad. I climbed on the bus and Andy tried to jump up all the steps._ When will he learn?_ I wondered. I took an empty seat on the back of the bus and Jonah sat by me, eyeing all the boys on the bus.

"Whoa, when did you become a body guard?" I asked jokingly.

"Ha-ha, I'm just making sure no one's trying to make a move on you," he said, looking around the bus. I put my hand on his cheek and smiled.

"Don't worry; I only love you," I explained. God, I wanted to kiss him, but the whole "kissing the air" issue was in the way.

I got off the bus and school was a rainbow of auras. I felt my head starting to throb with all the information. Jonah squeezed my hand.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his eyes glittering.

"Yeah, I'm fine I just got to get used to all this aura stuff," I explained while holding my head. I saw Chris walk by and his aura was a faint pink and the word _embarrassed _came to mind. I felt Jonah's hand cutting off my circulation since he saw him too.

"It's ok, what's done is done." I told him trying to make him loosen his grip.

We had a pretty boring day ay school, except in history when we looked up our family crests and I even looked up Jonah's for him. We got to lunch and I sat at an empty table next to Jonah and I saw the cheerleaders giving me nasty looks. There auras were all the same, light orange for _snobby_, except for one that was a light blue for _lonely._ It was Jenny and she was staring at me with sad eyes. I gave a slight smile and she did the same, then we both looked away. I told Jonah and he pointed something out to me: half the cheerleaders were getting mad at Jenny, who I would say looked like she was going to go rated R for major bloody violence and language on them. I got irritated and concentrated on them.

Suddenly, there was a scream and all the cheerleaders were covered in food and drinks except for Jenny. I let out a loud laugh, as did everyone else, and then Terry, the snobbiest cheerleader in the state and has hated me forever, walked to my table.

"Listen, freak, I don't know what kind of devil worship you were using right then, but I knew it was you!" she said with her eyes glaring with hate and her aura was a mixture of pink and dark red for _embarrassed _and _mad_.

"Aww, Terry, you look a little mad," I grabbed my fruit punch. "This should cool you down." I took my drink and poured it all on Terry. There was a loud "OOOOOOOH!" from the cafeteria. "Wow, that's funny...you didn't melt," I said, totally pissed at her. Jonah's mouth was a large O and so was Terry's, I put my head next to her ear and said, "If you want to keep picking on me, go ahead, but that was me getting your attention and trying to tell you to leave me alone." I grabbed my tray angrily and walked away.

Jonah ran after me and everyone was talking and whispering. I walked out of the lunchroom and Jonah grabbed my shoulder. I put my hand on his and turned around.

"I could get used to this whole medium thing, but I vow to use my powers for good!" I said, using a superhero tone.

"I'm happy you said that, but you've gotta be more careful or people are going to catch on!" he explained seriously. I nodded and the day passed by quickly, I got home and walked in to see my mom and dad yelling at Andy.

"WHY! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" yelled Dad. I put down my bag and looked at Jonah with a look of confusion. I looked at Andy and his aura told it all. Whoever had done something to him made him mad as Hell. Dad looked at me and looked at Andy. "Tell your sister what you did," he told Andrew. Andrew looked at me and started to explain.

"Bobby Lewis came up to me in P.E. and said you were the b-word and we started arguing and he kept saying mean things about you, so I punched him in the mouth," he explained.

"Bobby Lewis? Paul Lewis's little brother?" I asked. Paul Lewis was one of the football players who made fun of me.

"Yeah, you should've seen me Char-Char, he tried to hit me but I dodged and he has a black eye now and a bloody lip," he said, pointing to a red stain on his shirt. He looked proud and I was kind of proud, too, since he stood up for me.

"And Andrew got suspended for 2 days, and Bobby has detention for 2 days," Dad said, looking at me, then back at Andrew. "Look son, I'm glad you stood up for your sister, but you don't hit someone unless they hit you first," he explained and I laughed a little. He told me the exact same thing when I was little. My dad doesn't put up with crap.

"Yes sir," Andrew replied and Mom was giving him the "I'm so disappointed in you" look.

"You're grounded for a week, and don't even think about turning on the TV. You either read or sleep, your pick," Dad said sternly. Andrew got up and walked to his room, head down and dragging his feet. Then, Dad looked at me sternly and Jonah elbowed me like "You're gonna get it." Dad motioned me over to the couch. I walked over and sat down. "Why was Paul Lewis talking about you?" Dad asked. I explained to him how kids thought I was weird and that night at the football game.

"I had friends, but now they all would rather avoid me," I told him honestly. I told him the boy on the football field was probably a figment of my imagination. Dad and I had a long talk and he offered to take me to therapy. "No, I don't need therapy, it was the fire... it just messed me up a little," I said, hiding my pupils. Jonah looked at me and walked upstairs. Dad let me leave and started mumbling about fixing the air conditioner.

I went to my room and Jonah was sitting on my bed waiting. "Well, you certainly come from a family of fighters," he joked. I laughed and sat down next to him.

"Yeah, well it's who we are," I joked and I kissed him. He put his hand on my back and pulled me closer. We lay down and I pressed my body to his and then someone knocked on my door. _Dang, can't I just have one freaking minute!_ I thought and I sat up.

Mom walked in and started talking about today and I just zoned out, adding the occasional "Okay" and "I understand" and "Really?" and she left after finishing off with something about "life is hard." I hugged her and she left. By the time she finished it was already 9:00 and I had to go to bed. Jonah left and I changed into my pajamas. After that, he came back in. I turned out the light and lay down beside him. He kissed me good night and in minutes began snoring softly. It was a tiring day, but after all that happened I thought, _the Jones: 2, Everyone Else: 0._


	19. Speak of the Devil

**A/N: **Hey, guys, I'm sooooooooooo sorry about the late update. I had a major writer's block and lost inspiration for the chapter. I actually had to get Victoria to write the last half of the chapter! So, I dedicate this chapter to all my patient readers and to Victoria for picking up where I slacked off. Credit also goes to V for writing the poem. I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART, V!

_SEND ME A REVIEW IF YA LOVE JONAH! _I give you permission to flame me for the late update. Merry (belated) Christmas!

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**19**

**Speak of the Devil**

**When Revenge comes knocking,  
****You try to let it in,  
****But when you do,  
****It becomes a rowdy guest,  
****Tearing up futures and starting fights,  
****Your enemies become weak,  
****But so do you,  
****You try to make things right,  
****But it all goes wrong,  
****And you're completely stuck  
****So when Revenge comes,  
****Lock your heart and welcome Love in  
**_Revenge is Knocking,_ Victoria Burgess

**I **was shaken awake, and it wasn't by Jonah.

"CHARLOTTE! WAKE UP!" I heard my mom yell. My eyes fluttered open, finding a twisted, angry face two inches away from mine. "You have got some major explaining to do, young lady!"

"What the heck are you talking about?" I asked groggily.

"Why did you spill food all over Terry Rogers yesterday?" she asked sternly, standing up straight and crossing her arms over her chest, phone in one hand.

"Oh, yeah. That. Well, you see, she bullies me every day. She calls me the b-word and she tells me to F off, and she's always telling me about how I'm such a terrible person who can't flip to save my own life. She's been telling me stuff like this ever since she came to school in the fourth grade. I just couldn't take it anymore, so I flipped out and got my revenge. And I don't regret any of it," I explained, pulling my legs to my chest and hugging them with my arms.

"Charlotte," Mom sighed, "you know you shouldn't do that when someone bullies you. Why didn't you just come and tell your father and me?"

"Because if I had, it wouldn't make any difference. She would still bully me, counselor or no. I had to get her to leave me alone, and that's what I did yesterday. What's done is done." Mom handed me the phone. "Really, Mom? You want me to _call_ her?"

"Yes, I want you to call her, and _apologize_ for your misbehavior towards her."

"But, shouldn't _Terry_ apologize to _me_? _She's_ the one who made me flip out!"

"I'll talk to her mother about that. Just call her."

"Yes, ma'am." I reluctantly took the phone from Mom's hand. Right when I was about to punch in the area code, the phone rang. The caller I.D. read: _Anthony & Melissa Rogers_. Speak of the Devil. I answered the phone.

"Hello?" I said. There was dead air, and then a female voice came on.

"Is this the Jones residence?" she asked. I recognized it as Terry's voice.

"Yes, this is Charlotte. What do you want, Terry?" My mom scoffed and hit my arm with the back of her hand when I said that.

"I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I know it was wrong, and I shouldn't have done it," she stated. It sounded forced and unrealistic. I was guessing her mom was in the room.

"I forgive you. I'm sorry for what I did yesterday in the cafeteria. It was wrong and I shouldn't have done it, either," I apologized in the exact same tone as she. I wasn't sorry in the least bit, and I knew Terry wasn't either. I looked over at Mom. She gave me an "I don't believe you" look and turned to leave. When she left the room, I whispered into the receiver, "And if you _ever_ bully me again, I swear to God I will do worse. And you don't want to see me angry." Terry scoffed.

"Whatever, loser. I don't know how you pulled it off yesterday, but I _will_ get you back." She hung up. I rolled my eyes at her threat. She had no clue of what I could do to her.

I looked around the room. _Where'd Jonah go?_ I got out of bed and left the room. He wasn't in any of the bedrooms, he wasn't in the kitchen, he wasn't in the living room, and he wasn't in the dining room. He couldn't possibly be in the attic. That just left one room.

I made my way to the basement. I flipped the light switch, but I didn't see him. I walked down a couple of steps and called his name.

"Jonah, where are you?" I called out quietly when I reached the last step. I looked around the first half of the room. I checked in the bathroom. Nothing. Then, I found the morgue room door open. Cautiously, I walked over to the open door. It was dark inside the morgue.

"J-Jonah? Are y-you in here?" I asked softly, taking a few steps inside the dark room. I pulled on the chain of the light bulb. When the light came on, the door slammed and locked shut. I yelped in surprise. I tried to turn the stupid door knob, but it wouldn't budge for nothing. I banged on the door, begging for help. On my fifth bang, something grabbed my shirt collar and pulled me to the ground. I closed my eyes when I hit the cold floor. I was too scared to look up, because I _knew _it wasn't Jonah. I opened my eyelids slightly to find one of the spirits bending over me. I backed up and shakily got to my feet.

"What do you want?" I asked it. It just stared at me blankly with those milky white eyes. Then, another spirit materialized, then another, until I was completely surrounded by them. They all held out their tattooed hands, trying to touch me. "Get away. Get away from me," I demanded. They completely ignored me and came closer to me, tightening the circle. I felt myself crouching down as they held their hands out above my head. All kinds of emotions were running through my brain: _sadness_,_ sorrow_,_ mourning_, _despair, agony, _but the strongest one that ran through my mind was _anger_. Their ever-changing auras were making my head spin. I rubbed my throbbing temples with my forefingers as I tried to breathe properly. I couldn't take it anymore.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" I screamed. I leapt up and pushed the nearest spirit away, and they all vanished. I opened my eyes to find that I had pushed Andrew to the ground.

"Ow! Char, y-you're scaring me," he stuttered. I looked around the room. Mom and Dad were staring at me like I was some kind of freak.

"Why did you push him?" Dad asked me sternly.

"I-I-I… I d-don't know. One m-minute I was in my r-room, then I ended up d-down here… a-a-and the d-door locked on m-me… a-and then there were s-spirits… the s-spirits were t-trying to suffocate me… a-and then… and then I pushed one and Andy was in the same spot… I'm s-sorry I'm scaring you… I-I'm s-scaring m-m-m-myself…" I babbled. I knew I sounded like a complete idiot. I felt like one, too. I looked at my parents. They were exchanging confused glances. I was definitely going to the nut house.

Finally, Dad broke the awkward silence. "Y'all go get dressed. We'll deal with this later," he said, opening the door. We all filed out and walked back upstairs. When I opened the door to my room, I found Jonah sitting on my bed.

"Where were you?" I asked him. I must've had a crazy look on my face, because he gave me one of those looks like, _whoa, what did I do wrong?_

"I was just outside, looking at the leaves. Why?" I was about to beat his butt.

"Because I nearly got suffocated by a mob of spirits trying to find you!" I yelled.

"What? Did they hurt you?" he questioned, running over to me and checking my arms.

"No, but I hurt Andrew. I pushed one of the spirits away, and Andy was standing in the same spot. I feel terrible now," I told him. I laid my head in the crook of his neck. He faintly smelled like cologne. He wrapped his arms around me in a comforting hug.

"You should probably get dressed," he whispered. We let go and he went outside. I threw on a t-shirt and some navy blue sweats. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and put my makeup on. I grabbed my books and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I packed a snack for first period since I wasn't eating breakfast and ran to catch the bus, Jonah on my heels. We clambered on and sat in an empty seat. We got off the bus and walked to my locker. Right before I opened the lock, Jonah pulled my hand away.

"Something's in there. I can feel it," he whispered, making his hand intangible so it could pass through the door. He felt around blindly, and then pulled out a fake rubber rat and spider.

"Good God, was that the best she could do?" I scoffed, taking the rubber rodent and arachnid from his hands and throwing them in the nearest garbage can. I opened the door to the locker and was blasted with a cold, sticky liquid. I wiped it out of my eyes. I looked around and saw a smirking Terry walking proudly over to me.

"Hey, Charlotte, you got a little… something on your face," she said sarcastically.

"Oh, well, you have a little something on your shirt. Lemme get that for you," I said, smearing the green goop all over her shirt. "Oh, you have something in your hair, too!" I smeared it in her bleached blonde hair. She gasped, screamed, and cussed me out. I just smiled at her. I wasn't going to let her get the last laugh. Everyone who was watching laughed hysterically as Terry and her crew stormed away. I walked to the girl's bathroom and wiped as much goop off me as possible. As I wiped off the goop I heard yelling and screaming outside and Jonah came in.

"Hey, you're friend Jenny is about to start another World War, if you get what I'm saying." he said pointing to the door. I wasn't surprised; Jenny wasn't always the most tolerant person to walk the Earth.

I rushed out the bathroom door and went outside, with Jonah following behind me. As I walked out I saw Terry and Jenny in each other's faces, with Jenny looking like she was about to beat the snot out of Terry. Their fists were clenched, Terry was gritting her teeth, and Jenny's face was tomato red. I looked at their auras and once again _anger_ was overpowering all their emotions.

"You wanna go, Rogers!" Jenny yelled with a homicidal look in her eyes.

"Ready when you are, Newman!" Terry replied, getting closer in Jenny's face.

I rushed over to the girls and got between them (not a wise move, but it would stop the fight). I pushed the two away from each other and looked at them "Hey, just calm down you two, before one of the teachers come by." I said calmly.

"Oh, what's the matter Jones? Can't fight your own fights?" Terry said with a smirk

"Oh, _HELL_ no!" Jenny yelled with anger and she charged at Terry.

I pushed her farther away from Terry and I talked to Jenny. "Let me handle this, okay?" I said. Jenny stared at me for a while and then nodded in reply. I turned around and faced Terry, she gave me a look that said "I'm not scared of you" and I smiled at her, a smile full of hate and anger. She flipped me off and that was the last straw. I balled up my fist and swung at her; she staggered backward and held her nose, which was oozing blood.

The crowd yelled "OOOOOOH!" and Jenny laughed hysterically. I got in Terry's face.

"Told you I could do worse," I said. I stomped off and I heard locker doors slamming as I walked past them. Jonah appeared in front of me, his mouth wide open in shock.

"Why? Why did you do that?" he asked as I kept walking.

"Jonah, I'm sick and tired of all her BS and now she wants to mess with my best friend! I wasn't going to let her get away with it," I said calmly. The 3:00 bell rang and I walked towards the buses.

"You almost revealed being a medium." he said sternly.

"What do you mean? I know those lockers slammed but-" I started.

"No, when you hit Terry and walked off, all the books from the lockers were hitting Terry and her followers," he explained, cutting me off.

"Crap..." I moaned. I got onto the bus and Jonah and I sat down.

"You've got to be more careful, Charlotte," he said, holding my hand.

"I know, I know. I'll try," I said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. At the moment I was worried what my dad would say, since what happened with Andy, and now me.


	20. The Breaking Point

**A/N: **Hey guys! Here's chp. 20! Props to V for the chp and poem!

_SEND SOME REVIEWS IF YA LOVE JONAH! _c'mon ya know ya wanna!

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**20**

**The Breaking Point**

**You try so hard to stay grounded,  
****But when you have something pulling you away,  
****You can't stay grounded for long,  
****Can anyone relate?  
****Or are you the only one,  
****Nothing seems to get better,  
****And no one understands,  
****Is it better to hide your problems?  
Or hope for a better tomorrow.  
**_Better Tomorrow,_ _Victoria Burgess_

**I** stepped off of the bus, waiting to face the certain doom we all know as parents. Andrew rushed off the bus and went inside, while I just stood on the sidewalk holding Jonah's hand, not even knowing how I would explain half of this to my parents. _Had the school even called them yet?_ I thought. Just as I thought of that question, I heard the phone ring inside.

I looked at Jonah and he let go of my hand and wrapped his arms around my hips. "It's going to be okay," he said with sympathy coating his voice. "It's not like they're like my father and would beat half your brains out," he said with a little smile.

"You're right; I just don't know what I'm going to say. What if they decide to put me in therapy?" I said. My voice cracked on "therapy." I'd seen way to many shows about innocent people being taken to the "Looney Hut" by just talking to a therapist.

"Well, if they do take you to therapy, I'll be with you every step of the way," he said, pulling me closer to him. "Besides, you're a medium. If he tries to send you to an insane asylum, you can just hit him upside the head with a vase and he wouldn't even know you did it." I smiled at that comment; I had to admit being a medium did come in handy sometimes.

"Well, let's get this over with," I said, trying to bring myself to walk to the door. Jonah let go of me and grabbed my hand again. I sucked in a long breath and started towards the front door. As soon as I walked in, my parents were sitting on the couch. Mom's hands were folded in her lap (never a good sign), and Dad was sitting up tall with no emotion in his face (yet again, a bad sign).

"Charlotte, have a seat," Dad said while motioning me to the recliner. I walked over slowly and sat down, crossing my legs and arms, looking emotionless. I was preparing myself for the worst. "Now, Charlotte, we got a call from your school today, but first," Dad's looks hardened," I'm going to let you explain and defend yourself," he said while breathing in through his nose.

_What have you got to lose? _I thought to myself. I looked at my parents and began to speak. I explained to them how Terry had always been mean to me, how we never got along, the locker goo, the fight between her and Jenny, and how, most importantly, she's made my life a living hell. "So I got tired of her picking on me and I put all my anger onto her plastic new nose."

Mom and Dad looked at each other as if to say _time for the punishment!_ "Charlotte, what have I told you since day one?" Dad said, looking at me sternly.

"Always let them hit you first, and when they do, you go all Chuck Norris on their butts," I said with a serious face. Dad cracked a little bit of a grin.

"Yes, and did she hit you?" he said, getting serious.

"No."

"Then, it was wrong!"

I looked at Mom, just sitting there, staring at me ashamed. Then, she decided to join the conversation. "Charlotte, you just can't go around hitting people. You're only hurting yourself, and setting a bad example for your little brother and sister," she said frowning. She had to play the siblings card didn't she?

"But, Mom, she's _always _harassed me!" I said.

"And how do you explain hitting her with the books?" she said, her eyes blank and her expression unreadable. I haven't exactly decided how I should explain the books. Should I say it was a coincidence? Should I say they all just randomly hit her? My mind was spinning.

"Mom, Dad, there's something I need to tell you." I said, looking down at my shoes.

"We're all ears." Dad said

"I...I'm-I'm a medium. You know, a psychic person. That's how all those books hit Terry. I moved them with my mind. I can also read auras and," I breathed deeply, "this house is haunted. I can see the ghosts and that's why I've been drawing those weird paintings and acting so strange. And you can't deny that there're some weird things happening in this house." I let out a sigh and looked at my parents. Dad's eyes were huge; they were almost as big as my mom's gaping mouth. They looked at each other and back at me. Not to mention Jonah looked almost as shocked as they did.

XXX

As we were sitting in the waiting room for the therapist at the hospital, Jonah sat beside me looking nervous. "Well that went well." he said sarcastically. I gave him a smirk and the therapist's door opened. A tall, brunette man in a light blue dress shirt and khakis walked out. Dad stood up and they shook hands. "Hello, I'm Dr. Campbell," he told my dad.

"I'm Sean Jones and you know my wife, Laura, and this is my daughter, Charlotte," he said while motioning to me and Mom who were both still sitting down.

"Nice to meet you, please come into my office," he said, smiling at me and my parents. _Andrew and Piper are so lucky to be at Maw Maw's._ I thought.

The office reeked of Germ-X and crackers, and there were degrees everywhere on the wall. My parents took forever explaining my "problems." Mom did the most of the talking to the therapist while I just sat in the black leather chair beside Jonah, who was eyeing the doctor curiously. I studied the room while my parents and Dr. Campbell talked. The walls were a beige color, or what I could see of the wall, anyway. The little gold plaque on his desk read _Dr. Matthew Campbell, PhD. _I guess Jonah saw the plaque, too, because he said, "I know that name."

My parents finished their talk and Dr. Campbell looked over at me. "Well, it seems there are a lot of problems to be worked out," he said.

I got up out of my chair "There's no _problem_, I just have a power they can't understand, so they're processing it as craziness. Well, if that's the case, could I do _this _by being crazy?" I said. I concentrated on the degrees on the wall and they started to shake. Then, one by one they floated across the room and rearranged themselves on different spots on the wall. My parents were in awe and Dr. Campbell was just staring at me.

"Well, I've seen some people claim to be mediums, but you seem to be the real deal," he said, not even blinking.

"Huh?" I said louder than I meant to.

"Charlotte, therapists may seem to only help 'whack jobs,' but it's a little more than that. I can help you control this power," he said. His aura read _calm_.

My parents looked at him curiously. Mom piped up, "So Charlotte's not crazy?"

"Yes, Laura, your daughter is perfectly sane, not crazy. She was just placed with a blessing and a curse," he explained and Jonah looked at me and smiled.

"See, everything's going to be OK," he said. I nodded, but my face twisted into an unsure expression.

_Is it _really_ going to be OK?_ I thought.


	21. Confessions of a Teenaged Medium

**A/N:** Whoo! Chapter 21! I'm sorry this one took a while. I've had a cold for the past week and didn't feel like writing. Thanks to Victoria for the poem! Now, on with the show!

_SEND ME SOME REVIEWS IF YA LOVE MATT! _thought I'd change it up a bit! LOL

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**21**

**Confessions of a Teenaged Medium**

**People who have problems,  
****Tend to work them out together,  
****A little bit of help can do wonders,  
****In some situations it's hard to understand why you're being helped,  
****But it doesn't mean you can't trust those people  
**_You Can Trust_, Victoria Burgess

**T**he ride home was excruciatingly silent. Mom and Dad were still in complete shock. None of us said a word until we got home.

"Well, that was… _interesting_," Mom said as we entered the house. I rolled my eyes when she wasn't looking. "Why didn't you tell us you could do that earlier?" she asked me.

"'Cause you wouldn't have believed me," I said, going up to my room. I sat on my bed and Jonah sat beside me. He slid his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer. I laid my head in the crook of his neck, and he rested his chin atop my crown.

"I'm telling you, I know that man. Like, personally know him. I… I think he used to live in this house. I can't remember, though…" Jonah's voice trailed off. I lifted my head up to look at him.

"Do all ghosts get amnesia this bad?" I joked. He smiled and kissed my forehead. I thought for a second, and then said, "Well, since he knows I'm a medium now, I can ask him for you."

"No, no, it's okay. Don't worry about it," he insisted.

"Jonah, I have an appointment with him tomorrow. I can ask him."

"You would really do that for me?"

"Why not?" He smiled and kissed me. I kissed him back, and then went downstairs for dinner.

XXX

"So, how long have you had this power?" Dr. Campbell asked me.

"I dunno, about a month or so? Not very long," I answered. He nodded.

"Have you had any extreme cases? Like, visions, or full-body apparition sightings?"

"Yes, yes, and yes. When we first moved into our house, I had visions of this boy, Jonah, and his father, Ramsey. I've also seen Jonah and Ramsey in person, along with several spirits with white eyes and strange writing on their skin," I told him. When I mentioned Jonah, his eyes widened, but he remained calm. He cleared his throat.

"Where exactly do you live?" he asked.

"The old Aickman mortuary and funeral home," I answered. His dark blue eyes widened even more, and his face went sullen. "Are you okay?" I asked him. He looked like he was about to vomit.

"Did you say _Aickman_?" he asked. I nodded my head slightly. "Oh, dear God..."

"What?" I asked frantically. I was starting to get worried. I looked over at Jonah. _He remembers me _he mouthed. "Dr. Campbell, did you live in my house?" Dr. Campbell nodded weakly.

"When I was seventeen, I had cancer. I had to come here from New York every time I had treatment. My mother became fed up with driving me around for eight hours, so she found a house with really low rent; your house. At first, it was just too good to be true, but then my mother told the rest of my family what had happened in that house, which I'm sure you know now. Strange things were happening to me. That Jonah kid scared the living daylights out of me." Jonah fidgeted in his chair when he said that. "I knew he wanted me to help him, but I didn't know how. And one night, I woke up with that crazy writing all over my body, just like those spirits. Mom rushed me to the E.R. The doctors thought it was that new medicine I was testing, but I know it was that Jonah kid. He, and that house, ruined my life," he concluded. I processed his story through my head. Jonah would never do something like that.

"What would you do if I told you that Jonah is with us now?" I asked him. His jaw clenched and his body tensed up. "He's sitting right beside me."

Jonah leaned over the arm of his chair and said, "Tell him I'm sorry I scared him and it wasn't me who wrote on his skin. It was Aickman who did that. And since I didn't have a charge, I was in my burnt stage the whole time." I repeated what I was told to Dr. Campbell.

"Is… is that true?" he asked. I nodded my head. Jonah leaned over again and whispered to me.

"He also says he's sorry for terrorizing your family. And it was Ramsey who trapped Wendy in the shower curtain. Who's Wendy?" I asked him.

"Wendy and her little sister, Mary, were my cousins. Their parents were having problems, so they lived with my parents, my brother Billy, and me. Wendy vowed to never use shower curtains again," he chuckled.

"I don't blame her," I said. He smiled a sad smile. We were all silent for a moment.

"So, I recall your parents saying you drew some pretty disturbing pictures; how come?" Dr. Campbell asked, folding his hands on the desk.

"Well, after I received all those visions from Mr. Medium over here," I shot Jonah a quick glance, "I drew and painted important scenes from them. Mom and Dad just didn't know it at the time," I explained.

"I'd like to see some of them," he said.

"I can draw you a quick sketch, if you want," I said.

"Um, sure… Do you need some paper?" he asked me. I nodded my head and he walked over to the copier in the corner of the room and pulled out a sheet of paper. He clipped the paper onto a clipboard and handed it to me, along with a pen. "Here you go," he said, smiling. I thanked him and got to work. Within five minutes, I completed a quick sketch of Jonah's face and profile.

"I wasn't sure if you ever saw Jonah out of his burnt stage," I told him, handing him the sketch.

"Wow, you're good. He's definitely a _lot_ less scary," he said, beaming at me and the chair Jonah was sitting in.

"Should I take that as a compliment?" Jonah asked me. I shrugged.

"So has anything else happened while you've been living in the Aickman house?" Dr. Campbell asked me.

"Well, I saw a spirit in the cheer room mirror at school; Jonah appeared on the football field at a game one night; a spirit tried to attack my friend when she spent the night; I've been slammed against a bleeding wall telepathically; need I go on?" Dr. Campbell's jaw dropped.

"How about we save it for our next appointment…" he said, trying to understand everything I had told him. His aura changed drastically. It went from a calm sky blue to a confused muddy brown. He got out of his chair and walked over to me. Jonah and I stood up. "See you Wednesday," Dr. Campbell said, holding his hand out for me to shake. I shook his hand and we walked out of his office and into the hallway, where Mom was waiting for me.

"Oh, and Dr. Campbell," I said before he went back into his office.

"Yes?" he said, turning around.

"Jonah's my boyfriend." I heard him gasp and choke on something. I'm guessing his spit.

XXX

"So, how'd it go?" Mom asked me as we made our way to the car.

"Pretty well, actually," I said, climbing into the back seat with Jonah.

"What did you guys talk about?"

"Stuff," I muttered, not wanting to tell her what had happened to me over the past month. It wasn't any of her business anyway. We rode home in silence again. I walked up the stairs to my room and lay down on the bed.

"Why did you tell him we're together?" Jonah groaned, sitting down beside me.

"Thought he'd like to know," I grinned. I leaned over and kissed his cheek. He smiled and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

"I just hope we don't scare him away," he muttered.

"_Me_? Scare someone _away_? _Never!_" I said sarcastically, waving my hand around like a drama queen. Jonah rolled his eyes and pulled me closer to him and kissed the top of my head. I smiled and rested my head on his shoulder. "I love you," I muttered into his shirt.

"I love you too," he muttered into my hair. I was proud he was my boyfriend, but I was also scared of how Dr. Campbell was reacting to the news I gave him. I really didn't want to scare another person away.


	22. How to be Crazy

**A/N:** Hey y'all, sorry for such a late update. V wrote this chapter and poem! Enjoy!

_DO THE MAMBO IF YA LOVE JONAH! (Mambo #5 to be exact! LOL)_

P.S. If you like metal/screamo music, I would suggest to you the band Demon Hunter. They are amazing! They're not new or anything, but I found them the other day:) They are really, really good and you should check them out!

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**22**

**How to Be Crazy**

**People stare and people mock,  
****They do exactly what they want,  
****They try to make you hurt and cry,  
****But that's because they're human,  
****They don't try to understand,  
****And if they did,  
****We'd have a lot more good guys,  
****But so far no one tries to be nice,  
****But keep your head high anyway.  
**Good Guys, _Victoria Burgess_

**A**fter leaving Dr. Campbell when I told him Jonah and I were together, I wondered if he thought I was kidding. But I mean if he did wouldn't he have said anything? Oh, well, I guess when I go to my session I'll find out. It was a silent car ride and I could feel my mom's eyes burning into mine from the rearview mirror.

"So...what exactly have you and Mr. Campbell discussed?" she asked with a half-smile.

"Well we talk about...me," I said, looking over to Jonah who was looking out the window as if he were memorizing every street, corner, and house. "It's nothing really." I looked back at my mom who had a _Yeah right _look on her face.

"Oh well I thought you would be talking about ghosts or your-" she stopped herself, "gift," she continued.

"We don't talk about it all the time," I said, raising one eyebrow in suspicion of what she was trying to say.

"Do you ever talk about, I don't know, guys?" she asked with her eyes focused on the road. _Crap she's onto us! JUMP OUT THE WINDOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! _I thought.

"Sometimes, I mean-" I started trying to act cool.

"Charlotte, I know about Jonah," she said getting straight to the point. Jonah turned at the sound of his name and looked at me questionably.

"Campbell told you I presume?" I said.

"Yes, I have you talk to this man so I know how my daughter is," she explained pulling into the hospital parking lot.

"Mom, don't be so worried. It's not like I'm a necrophiliac or anything," I told her as I headed inside. Mom pulled out of the parking lot and I waved her good-bye. I turned around and Jonah was only one centimeter away from me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and I felt his lips press against mine. "Let's go inside," I said softly. Thank goodness no one was in the parking lot.

"Do you think he believed you?" asked Jonah.

"Obviously, since he told my mother," I felt anger building up and I was hoping not to explode. I tried to boil down _10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1...Not going to work_ I thought.

"Let's hope his jaw is still intact, last time it looked like it was going to fall off," Jonah laughed. I couldn't help but let out a slight laugh despite my anger. We got in the hospital and waited to see Dr. Campbell. Right now he better be enjoying the moments he had away from me. Jonah held my hand and squeezed it. "Calm down, it's going to be okay," he said trying to sound soothing.

"I can't. He destroyed my trust," I said looking at the therapist door in anger. After a couple minutes the door opened.

"Charlotte! Come on in," Dr. Campbell said while holding the door open and smiling. I gave him a dirty look and stomped into his office. He closed the door silently and Jonah came through. "What's wrong?" he asked detecting my anger (how could you avoid it, honestly).

"_What's wrong_? You told my mother about my supernatural romance!" I basically yelled.

"Charlotte, I have to tell her. It's my job," he said with a blank expression.

"Well, does your job description mention breaking someone's trust?" I snapped, feeling betrayed.

"Charlotte I-," he started.

"Whatever, I'm out," I grabbed the door and yanked it open. Jonah grabbed my hand and we walked to the bus stop. Jonah and I sat on the bench and waited. I crossed my arms and legs and put my head on Jonah's shoulder. He pulled me closer to him and everything was quiet.

"Charlotte, I know I can make you feel better," Jonah said with a grin.

"Is that supposed to mean perverted things or funny things?" I questioned him. Jonah laughed and stood up.

"Funny things," he answered. Part of me was hoping for perverted... The bus pulled up and Jonah and I climbed inside, once I found a seat Jonah started the show.

First, he went up to a man who was reading the newspaper and swiped it out of his grasp. The man looked utterly confused and stared at the floating newspaper. Jonah folded it into an airplane and attempted to make it fly, but instead hit many people in the process. I felt a smile sweep across my face.

Then, he went to a girl about my age who was wearing earphones and listening to her iPod Touch. She was pretend drumming and Jonah sat next to her. He unhooked the earphones and sat them in a woman's lap. The girl looked at the woman with confusion and as the girl got up to get her earphones, he grabbed the woman's pen she had been holding and started drawing smiley faces on people.

The bus was in shock, so I figured I'd have a little fun. I concentrated on almost everything in the bus and everybody's things were floating. The moment they were in the air, Jonah grabbed the girl's iPod and turned on a Jamaican styled song. Everybody's things were dancing and the paper airplane started a conga line. Everyone on the bus was in awe and yet at the same time they were confused.

The driver drove up to my school and stopped, how he managed to ignore what was going on I have no clue. Jonah and I did the mambo off of the bus. We let the bus go a little farther down the street until we made everything stop. We both burst into laughter and walked toward the campus.

Since I was excused for my therapy sessions I had no problems being late. I got to my locker and I closed its door and I find Terry standing there.

"Hey psycho, just got back from you little session?" she asked, smirking. God I wish I could just once beat the crap out of her without getting in trouble.

"What?" I asked.

"You're in therapy now!" she said as if I were stupid. I couldn't help it, but I burst into laughter. "Why are you laughing?" she asked, confused. _Because you don't know the real reason why I'm there, _I thought.

"No reason," I said, smiling. I shifted my books and walked off.

"Hey! Come back here freak!" Terry yelled trudging after me. I stopped and looked back at her, she looked angry, of course. "Do you really think I was going to let you walk away?" Terry said trying to sound tough.

"No, but it sure was funny to see your face." I remarked. As soon as I finished my sentence I concentrated on her ponytail and yanked.

"OW! Holy crap, that hurt!" Terry yelled, except she didn't say _crap_.

"That was almost as funny as seeing the look on your face," I snickered. Then, Terry jumped at me, and I quickly moved to the side avoiding the pounce and she looked at me. I stuck my tongue out at her like a 5 year old and she held back her fist. I watched it and it went straight to her face. She cried out in pain and I kept it going. After the punch, she threw herself on the wall and couldn't budge. I walked a little closer to her and crossed my arms.

"Now, what was that about me being in therapy?" I asked, sounding so polite it was scary. I walked away and Terry fell to the floor. People were all around her asking her why she had hit herself.

I looked around and Jonah was nowhere in sight. He had been at my locker when Terry and I were fighting. I went into the cafeteria and sure enough there was Jonah who had been in the kitchen stuffing his face with ice cream. I laughed and walked up to my sugar crazy boyfriend. I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his back.

"Please don't go all Slimer on me," I joked.

Jonah turned around and with his mouth full he mumbled, "Swima?"

"Yeah, that green blob ghost from Ghostbusters who ate everything in sight," I replied.

"Oh...Ghostbusters?" he asked, swallowing his ice cream.

"We should probably watch that tonight," I answered, leading him away from his fortress of ice cream wrappers and Popsicle sticks.

The day passed on and Terry stayed away (hallelujah!). When I got on the school bus, I sat next to Jenny, and Jonah had room to sit. She was on YouTube and the video she had been watching was none other than our bus this morning. It seems someone was able to hit record on their cellphone before it was lifted into the air. Jenny was laughing and saw me in the video and looked over at me.

"You did that didn't you!" she said referring to the video and laughing.

"Yep, that was me," I smiled. Then I wondered, should I tell Jenny about Jonah? I looked over at him. He was smiling as he watched his masterpiece being replayed. I decided against it. I had already lost Jenny once; I wasn't going to lose her again.


End file.
